jQuery and AJAX response header

Question

So I've got this jQuery AJAX call, and the response comes from the server in the form of a 302 redirect. I'd like to take this redirect and load it in an iframe, but when I try to view the header info with a javascript alert, it comes up null, even though firebug sees it correctly.

Here's the code, if it'll help:

$j.ajax({
    type: 'POST',
    url:'url.do',
    data: formData,
    complete: function(resp){
        alert(resp.getAllResponseHeaders());
    }
});

I don't really have access to the server-side stuff in order to move the URL to the response body, which I know would be the easiest solution, so any help with the parsing of the header would be fantastic.

Answer 1

The unfortunate truth about AJAX and the 302 redirect is that you can't get the headers from the return because the browser never gives them to the XHR. When a browser sees a 302 it automatically applies the redirect. In this case, you would see the header in firebug because the browser got it, but you would not see it in ajax, because the browser did not pass it. This is why the success and the error handlers never get called. Only the complete handler is called.

http://www.checkupdown.com/status/E302.html

The 302 response from the Web server should always include an alternative URL to which redirection should occur. If it does, a Web browser will immediately retry the alternative URL. So you never actually see a 302 error in a Web browser

Here are some stackoverflow posts on the subject. Some of the posts describe hacks to get around this issue.

How to manage a redirect request after a jQuery Ajax call

Catching 302 FOUND in JavaScript

HTTP redirect: 301 (permanent) vs. 302 (temporary)

Answer 2

The underlying XMLHttpRequest object used by jQuery will always silently follow redirects rather than return a 302 status code. Therefore, you can't use jQuery's AJAX request functionality to get the returned URL. Instead, you need to put all the data into a form and submit the form with the target attribute set to the value of the name attribute of the iframe:

$('#myIframe').attr('name', 'myIframe');

var form = $('<form method="POST" action="url.do"></form>').attr('target', 'myIframe');
$('<input type="hidden" />').attr({name: 'search', value: 'test'}).appendTo(form);

form.appendTo(document.body);
form.submit();

The server's url.do page will be loaded in the iframe, but when its 302 status arrives, the iframe will be redirected to the final destination.