Question

I’ve a problem…I use jQuery ajax to call a web service that returns XML. The jQuery ajax stuff works awesome for every browser except for ie.

So for ie browsers, I am using XDomainRequest. Here is the code:

if ($.browser.msie && window.XDomainRequest) {
    // Use Microsoft XDR
    var xdr = new XDomainRequest();
    xdr.open("get", theUserUrl);
    xdr.timeout = 95000;
    xdr.onerror = function () {
        console.log('we have an error!');
    }
    xdr.onprogress = function () {
        console.log('this sucks!');
    };
    xdr.ontimeout = function () {
        console.log('it timed out!');
    };
    xdr.onopen = function () {
        console.log('we open the xdomainrequest');
    };
    xdr.onload = function () {
        // XDomainRequest doesn't provide responseXml, so if you need it:
        var xml2 = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM");
        xml2.async = false;
        xml2.loadXML(xdr.responseText);
        console.log('do we get any response text at all?: ' + xdr.responseText);
        ParseOwnershipObjects(xml2);
        //AddServiceRequestsToMap(xml2, map, spinner);
    };
    xdr.send();
}

• This exact code works fine elsewhere in the application with a
  different url.

  The url is fine, it returns exactly what it should in the browser
  (and hence why the jquery ajax call works). Couple of things to
  note:

  I am integrating my own html/javascript with another guy’s asp.net
  project.

In the global.asax.cs file, I have:

protected void Application_BeginRequest(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    HttpContext.Current.Response.AddHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", "*");
    HttpContext.Current.Response.AddHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Methods", "GET,OPTIONS");
}

so I don’t think that it’s a header problem.

None of my handlers fire. Not the onprogress, ontimeout, onerror…nothing!
I don’t have time to convert the web service to JSON.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

Answer 1

As it turns out, there were special characters in the url parameters that were not being correctly dealt with by the XDomainRequest object. Instead of the GET request, I am going to use the POST request on internet explorer-only queries.

EDIT – I ended up switching the web service over to return output in JSON format, thus negating the need for the XDomainRequest. Using JSON speeds things up a bit too, I recommend it!