Question

is it possible to catch anything that comes from the server via ajax ?
I know that the ajaxComplete() fires when some ajax work completes

I would like to e.g.

alert(whichever content came from the server as a result for $.ajax, $.post, $.get)

Answer 1

jQuery.ajaxComplete should do just fine.

$(document).ajaxComplete(function(event, XHR, ajaxOptions) {
    var resp = XHR.responseText 
                ? XHR.responseText 
                : (XHR.responseHTML
                    ? XHR.responseHTML
                    : XHR.responseXML);
    alert(resp);
});

The documentation says that the response will be in XHR.responseHTML or XHR.responseXML, but I suspect the latter might be a typo, since my empirical test show that the two members present are XHR.responseText and XHR.responseHTML.

But then again, my tests weren’t exhaustive and didn’t take in account the mime type returned by the server, so don’t take my word for it, as I might be horribly mistaken.

Also this example blatantly ignores the status code returned and should by no means be taken as a good example, merely as a possible starting point.

See an ugly running demo