XMLHttpRequest.sendAsBinary()

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Deprecated since Gecko 31 (Firefox 31 / Thunderbird 31 / SeaMonkey 2.28)
This feature has been removed from the Web standards. Though some browsers may still support it, it is in the process of being dropped. Do not use it in old or new projects. Pages or Web apps using it may break at any time.

The XMLHttpRequest.sendAsBinary() method is a variant of the send() method that sends binary data.

Note: This non-standard method is considered deprecated as of Gecko 31 (Firefox 31 / Thunderbird 31 / SeaMonkey 2.28), and will be removed soon. The standard send(Blob data) method can be used instead.
JavaScript
void sendAsBinary(
   in DOMString body
);

This method, used in conjunction with the readAsBinaryString method of the FileReader API, makes it possible to read and upload any type of file and to stringify the raw data.

Parameters
body
The request body as a DOMstring. This data is converted to a string of single-byte characters by truncation (removing the high-order byte of each character).
sendAsBinary() polyfill

Since sendAsBinary() is an experimental feature, here is a polyfill for browsers that don't support the sendAsBinary() method but support typed arrays.

JavaScript
/*\
|*|
|*|  :: XMLHttpRequest.prototype.sendAsBinary() Polyfill ::
|*|
|*|  https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/DOM/XMLHttpRequest#sendAsBinary()
|*|
\*/

if (!XMLHttpRequest.prototype.sendAsBinary) {
  XMLHttpRequest.prototype.sendAsBinary = function (sData) {
    var nBytes = sData.length, ui8Data = new Uint8Array(nBytes);
    for (var nIdx = 0; nIdx < nBytes; nIdx++) {
      ui8Data[nIdx] = sData.charCodeAt(nIdx) & 0xff;
    }
    /* send as ArrayBufferView...: */
    this.send(ui8Data);
    /* ...or as ArrayBuffer (legacy)...: this.send(ui8Data.buffer); */
  };
}
Note: It's possible to build this polyfill putting two types of data as argument for send(): an ArrayBuffer (ui8Data.buffer – the commented code) or an ArrayBufferView (ui8Data, which is a typed array of 8-bit unsigned integers – uncommented code). However, on Google Chrome, when you try to send an ArrayBuffer, the following warning message will appear: ArrayBuffer is deprecated in XMLHttpRequest.send(). Use ArrayBufferView instead. Another possible approach to send binary data is the StringView Non native typed arrays superclass in conjunction with the send() method.

License

© 2016 Mozilla Contributors
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License v2.5 or later.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-us/docs/web/api/xmlhttprequest/sendasbinary

Reference XMLHttpRequest