How can I make requests to other server(s) (i.e. get a page from any desired server) with a JavaScript within the user\'s browser? There are limitations in place to prevent
Thanks a lot, this is really a good trick. I did in this way:
test.html
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<script>
function loadXMLDoc()
{
if (window.XMLHttpRequest)
{// code for IE7+, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari
xmlhttp=new XMLHttpRequest();
}
else
{// code for IE6, IE5
xmlhttp=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
}
xmlhttp.onreadystatechange=function()
{
if (xmlhttp.readyState==4 && xmlhttp.status==200)
{
document.getElementById("myDiv").innerHTML=xmlhttp.responseText;
}
}
xmlhttp.open("GET","sp.php",true);
xmlhttp.send();
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<h2>Using the XMLHttpRequest object</h2>
<div id="myDiv"></div>
<button type="button" onclick="loadXMLDoc()">Change Content</button>
</body>
</html>
sp.php
<?php
print file_get_contents("http://your.url.com/you-can-use-cross-domain");
?>
This is rather easy... if you know the 'secret' trick almost nobody shares..
It's called Yahoo yql...
So in order to regain 'power to the user' (and returning to the convenient mantra: 'never accept no'), just use http://query.yahooapis.com/ (instead of a php? proxy serverside script).
jQuery would not be strictly needed.
EXAMPLE 1:
Using the SQL-like command:
select * from html
where url="http://stackoverflow.com"
and xpath='//div/h3/a'
The following link will scrape SO for the newest questions (bypassing cross-domain security bull$#!7):
http://query.yahooapis.com/v1/public/yql?q=select%20title%20from%20html%20where%20url%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fstackoverflow.com%22%20and%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20xpath%3D%27%2F%2Fdiv%2Fh3%2Fa%27%0A%20%20%20%20&format=json&callback=cbfunc
As you can see this will return a JSON array (one can also choose xml) and calling the callback-function: cbfunc
.
Indeed, as a 'bonus' you also save a kitten every time you did not need to regex data out of 'tag-soup'.
Do you hear your little mad scientist inside yourself starting to giggle?
Then see this answer for more info (and don't forget it's comments for more examples).
Good Luck!