Javascript / jQuery - Parse returned "data" as HTML for further selection?

Question

webservice returns me some data. The data is actually just raw HTML (so no XML header, no tags around it, but just part of the html).

<div class="Workorders"> <div id="woo_9142" class="Workorder"> <span class="Workorder">S1005</span> <span class="Pn">30-2</span> <span class="Description">Cooling Fan</span> <span class="Shortages">3616-1 (SV)</span> <span class="Company">xxx</span> </div> <div id="woo_9143" class="Workorder"> <span class="Workorder">S1006</span> <span class="Pn">30-2</span> <span class="Description">Cooling Fan</span> <span class="Shortages">3616-1 (SV)</span> <span class="Company">xxx</span> </div> </div> 

If these were such XML:

 <workorders> <workorder id="woo_9142"> <partnumber>30-2</partnumber> </workorder> </workorders> 

I could go like this in jQuery:

 $('/workorders/workorder', data).each(function() { //This would give every partnumber $('partnumber', this).text(); }); 

How can I parse the returned HTML (as described at the beginning)?

 myNamespace.onSuccess = function(request) { //request contains the raw html string returned from the server //How can I make this possible: $(request).find('div.Workorders div.Workorder').each(function() { //Do something with the Workorder DIV in 'this' }); } 

Answer 1

sort of

 myNamespace.onSuccess = function(request) { $(request.responseText).filter('div.Workorder').each(function() { $('span.Pn', $(this)).text(); }); } 

Answer 2

You tried to add html to dom, hiding it and then processing it:

 myNamespace.onSuccess = function(request) { var hidden = document.createElement ( 'div' ); hidden.id = 'hiddenel'; $("body").append ( hidden ); $("#hiddenel").css ( 'visibility', 'hidden' ); $("#hiddenel").html ( resp ); $("#hiddenel").find ( 'div.Workorders div.Workorder').each(function() { ..... }); } 

Answer 3

You can specify the explicitly returned type that you expect: http://docs.jquery.com/Specifying_the_Data_Type_for_AJAX_Requests