Problem parsing xml with jquery

Question

I'm trying to parse xml from SharePoint service (lists) using jquery. I have XMLHttpRequest object xData which contains responseXML property, which is IXMLDOMDocument2.

xData.responseText has following value:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"&gt;
<soap:Body>
<GetListItemsResponse xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/soap/"&gt;&lt;GetListItemsResult&gt;
<listitems xmlns:s='uuid:BDC6E3F0-6DA3-11d1-A2A3-00AA00C14882'
         xmlns:dt='uuid:C2F41010-65B3-11d1-A29F-00AA00C14882'
         xmlns:rs='urn:schemas-microsoft-com:rowset'
         xmlns:z='#RowsetSchema'>
    <rs:data ItemCount="2">
       <z:row ows_Title='Bosna i Hercegovina' ows_MetaInfo='1;#' ows__ModerationStatus='0' ows__Level='1' ows_ID='1' ows_owshiddenversion='1' ows_UniqueId='1;#{05EC6AB5-D1C6-4CCE-8B70-5FF7B922AE6A}' ows_FSObjType='1;#0' ows_Created='2010-10-29 15:59:59' ows_FileRef='1;#sites/state/Lists/CountryOfResidence/1_.000' />
       <z:row ows_Title='Hrvatska' ows_MetaInfo='2;#' ows__ModerationStatus='0' ows__Level='1' ows_ID='2' ows_owshiddenversion='1' ows_UniqueId='2;#{45FA88C3-17AF-4135-A926-6BE0C878EAAF}' ows_FSObjType='2;#0' ows_Created='2010-10-29 16:02:18' ows_FileRef='2;#sites/state/Lists/CountryOfResidence/2_.000' />
    </rs:data>
    </listitems>
</GetListItemsResult>
</GetListItemsResponse>
</soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

I use following code:

$(xData.responseXML).find("z:row").each(function () {
    var liHtml = "" + $(this).attr("ows_Title") + "";
    alert(liHtml);
    $("#tasksUL").append(liHtml);
   });

which, in fact does nothing. It is because $(xData.responseXML).find("z:row").length is 0, and only $(xData.responseXML).find("*") has length other than 0 (8 in this case).

So, my problem is jquery find function which does not recognize xml nodes I have, and I cannot find that anyone had similar problem.

Answer 1

You need to escape the colon. See the docs for more info.

Try this:

$(xData.responseXML).find("z\\:row")

Also, I thought there was an issue with colons in versions of jQuery prior to 1.4.3, but I can't locate that issue right now. If you're still having issues and you're using an older version, try upgrading.