jQuery.ajax

Description

Perform an asynchronous HTTP (Ajax) request.

jQuery.ajax( url [, settings ] )

The $.ajax() function underlies all Ajax requests sent by jQuery. It is often unnecessary to directly call this function, as several higher-level alternatives like $.get() and .load() are available and are easier to use. If less common options are required, though, $.ajax() can be used more flexibly.

At its simplest, the $.ajax() function can be called with no arguments:

$.ajax();

Note: Default settings can be set globally by using the $.ajaxSetup() function.

This example, using no options, loads the contents of the current page, but does nothing with the result. To use the result, you can implement one of the callback functions.

Data Types

Different types of response to $.ajax() call are subjected to different kinds of pre-processing before being passed to the success handler. The type of pre-processing depends by default upon the Content-Type of the response, but can be set explicitly using the dataType option. If the dataType option is provided, the Content-Type header of the response will be disregarded.

The available data types are text, html, xml, json, jsonp, and script.

If text or html is specified, no pre-processing occurs. The data is simply passed on to the success handler, and made available through the responseText property of the jqXHR object.

If xml is specified, the response is parsed using jQuery.parseXML before being passed, as an XMLDocument, to the success handler. The XML document is made available through the responseXML property of the jqXHR object.

If json is specified, the response is parsed using jQuery.parseJSON before being passed, as an object, to the success handler. The parsed JSON object is made available through the responseJSON property of the jqXHR object.

If script is specified, $.ajax() will execute the JavaScript that is received from the server before passing it on to the success handler as a string.

If jsonp is specified, $.ajax() will automatically append a query string parameter of (by default) callback=? to the URL. The jsonp and jsonpCallback properties of the settings passed to $.ajax() can be used to specify, respectively, the name of the query string parameter and the name of the JSONP callback function. The server should return valid JavaScript that passes the JSON response into the callback function. $.ajax() will execute the returned JavaScript, calling the JSONP callback function, before passing the JSON object contained in the response to the $.ajax() success handler.

For more information on JSONP, see the original post detailing its use.

Sending Data to the Server

By default, Ajax requests are sent using the GET HTTP method. If the POST method is required, the method can be specified by setting a value for the type option. This option affects how the contents of the data option are sent to the server. POST data will always be transmitted to the server using UTF-8 charset, per the W3C XMLHTTPRequest standard.

The data option can contain either a query string of the form key1=value1&key2=value2, or an object of the form {key1: 'value1', key2: 'value2'}. If the latter form is used, the data is converted into a query string using jQuery.param() before it is sent. This processing can be circumvented by setting processData to false. The processing might be undesirable if you wish to send an XML object to the server; in this case, change the contentType option from application/x-www-form-urlencoded to a more appropriate MIME type.