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JavaScript AJAX Basics (retiring) AJAX Concepts Introducing AJAX

Posted by A X
A X
12,842 Points

Why does AJAX use XML?

I just re-watched the intro to AJAX video, and the video mentions that in order to see AJAX on the console you need to enable the ability to see XML HTTP requests. What I'm not understanding is why AJAX is using XML vs. some variant of JS. Isn't AJAX a variant of JavaScript not XML?

1 Answer

Seth Kroger
Seth Kroger
56,413 Points
Seth Kroger
Seth Kroger
56,413 Points

From MDN: "AJAX stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML." XML is just the format of the data being requested/sent. Think of it as a much more generalized version of HTML where you can make up your own tags. Nowadays it's more common to request JSON over XML, but the original name stuck.