IE9 refuses to process XML response

Question

This is a question in relation to this one.

In UPDATE II, I added a script based on Jamie\'s feedback.

UPDATE - tl;dr:

Answer 1

IE is notoriously fussy when it comes to accepting XML and parsing it. Try something like this:

function process_xml(xml) {
  var type = $(xml).find('type').text() ;
  $('#type').html(type) ;

  // Find other elements and add them to your document
}

$(function() {
  $('#uploadForm').ajaxForm({ 
    dataType: "xml", // 'xml' passes it through the browser's xml parser
    success: function(xml,status) {

      // The SUCCESS EVENT means that the xml document
      // came down from the server AND got parsed successfully
      // using the browser's own xml parsing caps.

      process_xml(xml);

      // Everything goes wrong for Internet Explorer
      // when the mime-type isn't explicitly text/xml.

      // If you are missing the text/xml header
      // apparently the xml parse fails,
      // and in IE you don't get to execute this function AT ALL.

    },
    complete: function(xhr,status){

      if(status == 'parsererror'){

        xmlDoc = null;

        // Create the XML document from the responseText string

        if(window.DOMParser) {

          parser = new DOMParser();
          xml = parser.parseFromString(xhr.responseText,"text/xml");

        } else {

          // Internet Explorer
          xml = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM");
          xml.async = "false";
          xml.loadXML(xhr.responseText);

        }

        process_xml(xml);

      }
    },
    error: function(xhr,status,error)
    {
      alert('ERROR: ' + status) ;
      alert(xhr.responseText) ;
    }
  });
});

Also,use alert() throughout debugging to provide feedback on what information is being passed through at all times.

EDIT

The crucial thing is ensure your XML file is 'well-formed', i.e. it must not contain any syntax errors. You need to begin the XML file with:

It's not so much a server issue because, the errors come from your browser (i.e. Internet Explorer) because it thinks the XML is malformed. The error comes from your browser and indicates that your XML is malformed. You can manually set what headers you want returned with these $.ajax() settings:

dataType: ($.browser.msie) ? "text" : "xml",
accepts: {
    xml: "text/xml",
    text: "text/xml"
}

Or another way to do the same thing is to ask for a particular header:

headers: {Accept: "text/xml"},

The difference between the content-types application/xml and text/xml are minor (it's based on each XML's charset), but if you want to know you can read this post.