title: Consume REST service that returns a single value
body: <p>I am used to consuming Web services via a XMLHttpRequest, to retrieve xml or JSON.</p>
  
  <p>Recently, I have been working with SharePoint REST services, which can return a single value (for example 5532, or "Jeff"). I am wondering if there is a more efficient way than XMLHttpRequest to retrieve this single value. For example, would it work if I loaded the REST url via an iframe, then retrieved the iframe content? Or is there any other well established method?</p>
  
  <p>[Edit] By single value, I really mean that the service just returns these characters. This is not even presented in a JSON or xml response.</p>