Question

I’m trying to download an XML file, but it does not have a .xml extension.
Example:

$.ajax({
        type: "GET",
        url: template.tmx,
        dataType: "xml",
        async: false,
        success: function(xml, textStatus, jqXHR){
                k.operations.load.processMap(xml);
        }
});

However: this does not work. The success function is never fired.

If I remove the dataType: "xml", line, it actually does fire the success function.

But then it goes wrong. I can’t do anything with the result, for example in an $(xml).find(). Normally, when you pass an XML-string into jquery it should just process it, but it does not work.

You can find the xml file here:
http://kipdola.be/subdomain/kiflea/template.tmx

Answer 1

The extension won’t matter, but the MIME type does. Your resource emits

content-type: text/plain

jQuery seems to refuse to process a response of that type as XML.

You need to either change the content-type the server emits for the resource, or, if you can’t, fetch the data using a “normal” Ajax request and parsing it manually.

Edit: There seems to be a way to convert on the fly since jQuery 1.5:

As of jQuery 1.5, jQuery can convert a dataType from what it received in the Content-Type header to what you require. For example, if you want a text response to be treated as XML, use “text xml” for the dataType