jQuery and AJAX response header

Question

cballou's solution will work if you are using an old version of jquery. In newer versions you can also try:

  $.ajax({
   type: 'POST',
   url:'url.do',
   data: formData,
   success: function(data, textStatus, request){
        alert(request.getResponseHeader('some_header'));
   },
   error: function (request, textStatus, errorThrown) {
        alert(request.getResponseHeader('some_header'));
   }
  });

According to docs the XMLHttpRequest object is available as of jQuery 1.4.

If this is a CORS request, you may see all headers in debug tools (such as Chrome->Inspect Element->Network), but the xHR object will only retrieve the header (via xhr.getResponseHeader('Header')) if such a header is a simple response header:

• Content-Type
• Last-modified
• Content-Language
• Cache-Control
• Expires
• Pragma

If it is not in this set, it must be present in the Access-Control-Expose-Headers header returned by the server.

About the case in question, if it is a CORS request, one will only be able to retrieve the Location header through the XMLHttpRequest object if, and only if, the header below is also present:

Access-Control-Expose-Headers: Location

If its not a CORS request, XMLHttpRequest will have no problem retrieving it.

 var geturl;
  geturl = $.ajax({
    type: "GET",
    url: 'http://....',
    success: function () {
      alert("done!"+ geturl.getAllResponseHeaders());
    }
  });

The unfortunate truth about AJAX and the 302 redirect is that you can't get the headers from the return because the browser never gives them to the XHR. When a browser sees a 302 it automatically applies the redirect. In this case, you would see the header in firebug because the browser got it, but you would not see it in ajax, because the browser did not pass it. This is why the success and the error handlers never get called. Only the complete handler is called.

http://www.checkupdown.com/status/E302.html

The 302 response from the Web server should always include an alternative URL to which redirection should occur. If it does, a Web browser will immediately retry the alternative URL. So you never actually see a 302 error in a Web browser

Here are some stackoverflow posts on the subject. Some of the posts describe hacks to get around this issue.

How to manage a redirect request after a jQuery Ajax call

Catching 302 FOUND in JavaScript

HTTP redirect: 301 (permanent) vs. 302 (temporary)