use javascript to read a link resource without ajax

Question

Not sure if it's possible but how do I read a resource from a url using javascript without ajax?

for example, the following url is a static text file containing json encoded text

http://mysite.s3.amazonaws.com/jsonencodedcontent.txt

I'd like to use javascript to read the content from above link, read the json content into a javascript variable.

I can't use ajax because of cross site and I have no control over amazon S3 domain.

anyway to achieve this?

Answer 1

Try @Ben's suggestion first. If for any reason that doesn't work in your case, here's two options I've both seen and used, which may or may not be available in your case (I'm providing two overly simplified examples just to clarify my points):

Create a server side resource that resides in your domain and retrieves and returns the cross site content for you:

<?php
die(file_get_contents('http://mysite.s3.amazonaws.com/jsonencodedcontent.txt'));

Use mod_rewrite (or something similar) to create a virtual resource in your domain that resolves to the remote content behind the scenes:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^jsonencodedcontext\.txt$ http://mysite.s3.amazonaws.com/jsonencodedcontent.txt [P]