Read and Process XML using jQuery Ajax

While working on my current project, for one of my requirement I need to read and process the XML file using jQuery and Ajax. The actual XML file was very huge and I can't share. So in this post, I will show you how to process XML file with jQuery and Ajax.

Below is the sample XML file that we will be using for the demo.The XML file is having list of books with Title and Publisher as 2 XML node with every book.

//Code Starts <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <BookList>   <Book>      <Title>jQuery: Novice to Ninja</Title>      <Publisher>Site point</Publisher>   </Book>   <Book>      <Title>Learning jQuery</Title>      <Publisher>PACKT</Publisher>   </Book>   <Book>      <Title>Head First jQuery</Title>      <Publisher>O'Reilly</Publisher>   </Book>   <Book>      <Title>jQuery UI 1.8</Title>      <Publisher>PACKT</Publisher>   </Book> </BookList> //Code Ends 

Now, to process the XML using jQuery, below is the idea to how to do it..

• Declare a div which will be used to show the XML content.
• As the display will be in the list so append the UL to the div element.
• Call the ajax method to process the xml file.
• Set HTTP request type to "GET" and also provide the name of XML file in url.
• Set the datatype to "xml".
• We also need to define a callback functions, which gets called when request is successful or if some error occurred.
• So when success callback is called then loop through the xml content.
• Get the node value for "Title" and "Publisher" and append it to the div.
• Define error callback to handle the error.

So here is the complete jQuery code.

//Code Starts $(document).ready(function(){   $("#dvContent").append("<ul></ul>");   $.ajax({     type: "GET",     url: "BookList.xml",     dataType: "xml",     success: function(xml){     $(xml).find('Book').each(function(){       var sTitle = $(this).find('Title').text();       var sPublisher = $(this).find('Publisher').text();       $("<li></li>").html(sTitle + ", " + sPublisher).appendTo("#dvContent ul");     });   },   error: function() {     alert("An error occurred while processing XML file.");   }   }); }); //Code Ends 

And below is the output:

Download Code

Feel free to contact me for any help related to jQuery, I will gladly help you.