XMLHttpRequest: getResponseHeader() method

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.

Note: This feature is available in Web Workers, except for Service Workers.

The XMLHttpRequest method getResponseHeader() returns the string containing the text of a particular header's value.

If there are multiple response headers with the same name, then their values are returned as a single concatenated string, where each value is separated from the previous one by a pair of comma and space. The getResponseHeader() method returns the value as a UTF byte sequence.

Note: The search for the header name is case-insensitive.

If you need to get the raw string of all of the headers, use the getAllResponseHeaders() method, which returns the entire raw header string.

Syntax

js
getResponseHeader(headerName)

Parameters

headerName

A string indicating the name of the header you want to return the text value of.

Return value

A string representing the header's text value, or null if either the response has not yet been received or the header doesn't exist in the response.

Examples

In this example, a request is created and sent, and a readystatechange handler is established to look for the readyState to indicate that the headers have been received; when that is the case, the value of the Content-Type header is fetched. If the Content-Type isn't the desired value, the XMLHttpRequest is canceled by calling abort().

js
const client = new XMLHttpRequest(); client.open("GET", "unicorns-are-awesome.txt", true); client.send(); client.onreadystatechange = () => { if (client.readyState === client.HEADERS_RECEIVED) { const contentType = client.getResponseHeader("Content-Type"); if (contentType !== my_expected_type) { client.abort(); } } };

Specifications

Specification
XMLHttpRequest
# dom-xmlhttprequest-getresponseheader

Browser compatibility

See also