Hi all,

I am doing some work in cross-browser AJAX, and I have run into a problem with Internet Explorer. No big surprise here, but this time, I can't find a solution.

Basically, I have a function that attempts to load and parse an XML document that was created dynamically in PHP on the server-side. This works great in Firefox, but in Internet Explorer, it does not.

This is the function that loads the remote document by URL. If I pass the URL to a document ending in ".xml," the alert displays the number of tags in it, as it should. However, if I pass the URL of a .php file that generates the exact same content as the xml file, the element count is 0.

function loadXMLDoc(url) {
 if(window.ActiveXObject) {
  xmlDoc = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM");
  xmlDoc.async = false;
  xmlDoc.load(url);
  alert(url + ": " + xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("*").length);
  }
 else if(document.implementation && document.implementation.createDocument) {
  xmlDoc = document.implementation.createDocument("","",null);
  xmlDoc.async = false;
  xmlDoc.load(url);
  }
 return xmlDoc;
 }

Some questions you may ask:

"Does the PHP file set the HTTP Content-Type header correctly?"
Yes. Apache sends "application/xml" for xml documents, so I set PHP to do the same. Also tried "text/xml" with no love.

"Is the XML valid?"
Yes. I even tried it with a simple one-empty-element document with the same effect.

If anyone has suggestions, I would really appreciate it.

Thanks
Dustin

Well, I figured it out. Apparently, Microsoft.XMLDOM.load refuses to load SSL encrypted pages that send no-cache headers.

This bug is documented by Microsoft: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/272359

: Hi all,
:
: I am doing some work in cross-browser AJAX, and I have run into a
: problem with Internet Explorer. No big surprise here, but this time,
: I can't find a solution.
:
: Basically, I have a function that attempts to load and parse an XML
: document that was created dynamically in PHP on the server-side.
: This works great in Firefox, but in Internet Explorer, it does not.
:
: This is the function that loads the remote document by URL. If I
: pass the URL to a document ending in ".xml," the alert displays the
: number of tags in it, as it should. However, if I pass the URL of a
: .php file that generates the exact same content as the xml
: file, the element count is 0.
:
:

: function loadXMLDoc(url) {
:  if(window.ActiveXObject) {
:   xmlDoc = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM");
:   xmlDoc.async = false;
:   xmlDoc.load(url);
:   alert(url + ": " + xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("*").length);
:   }
:  else if(document.implementation && document.implementation.createDocument) {
:   xmlDoc = document.implementation.createDocument("","",null);
:   xmlDoc.async = false;
:   xmlDoc.load(url);
:   }
:  return xmlDoc;
:  }
: 

:
:
: Some questions you may ask:
:
: "Does the PHP file set the HTTP Content-Type header correctly?"
: Yes. Apache sends "application/xml" for xml documents, so I set PHP
: to do the same. Also tried "text/xml" with no love.
:
: "Is the XML valid?"
: Yes. I even tried it with a simple one-empty-element document with
: the same effect.
:
: If anyone has suggestions, I would really appreciate it.
:
: Thanks
: Dustin
: