I have a simple $.ajax call that returns a response that looks like this:

<div id='type'>success</div>
<div id="graph"></div>
<script type='text/javascript'>
   //some script that manipulates the graph div
</script>

and on my .ajax's success(response) function, I have:

$(response).find('#type').text()

my problem is that it always returns null if I use .html()

and 'an empty string' when i use .text();

Is there something wrong with my syntax?

I have a simple $.ajax call that returns a response that looks like this:

<div id='type'>success</div>
<div id="graph"></div>
<script type='text/javascript'>
   //some script that manipulates the graph div
</script>

and on my .ajax's success(response) function, I have:

$(response).find('#type').text()

my problem is that it always returns null if I use .html()

and 'an empty string' when i use .text();

Is there something wrong with my syntax?

• javascript
• jquery
• html
• ajax

Share Follow edited Sep 6, 2010 at 0:11 BoltClock 725k165165 gold badges1.4k1.4k silver badges1.4k1.4k bronze badges asked Sep 5, 2010 at 23:59 locklock 6,5941818 gold badges6161 silver badges7777 bronze badges 5

• also previously, the div#type was a 'p#type' but still it returns the same result as it is now. – lock Commented Sep 6, 2010 at 0:02
• 2 have you inserted the response into the DOM? – Rob Commented Sep 6, 2010 at 0:04
• did you try this $("#type", response).text() not sure though if that will work – Umair A. Commented Sep 6, 2010 at 0:06
• @rob: well i did try that a while ago but its not how im supposed to do it, coz the purpose of retrieving that div's value is so that i could decide if i must insert it to the DOM or not – lock Commented Sep 6, 2010 at 0:13
• @Rob - You don't need do to that, $(response) creates a document fragment, which is traversable and much faster to deal with as well :) – Nick Craver Commented Sep 6, 2010 at 0:15

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5 Answers 5

Sorted by: Reset to default 9

It's because it's at the root level of the response, so .find() won't work (because it's not a descendant), you need .filter(), like this:

$(response).filter('#type').text()

Your response HTML needs to have a root element so that it can find() elements, because find() searches descendants of a DOM element. You can achieve this by adding the response to the document's DOM, or to another jQuery DOM element.

You can also do this and it'll work as well:

$('<div>' + response + '</div>').find('#type').text();

here you can test your code should work fine. you have to have a problem in ajax, try with "alert" to "response" to see what response you get

test

It cant be something as simple as the single quotes around the id in the type div can it?

(the html, not the js)

In your $.ajax() request, set dataType as html