Why is the TaxonomyClientService.asmx service returning escaped XML for my result?

Question

I was able to sucessfully call the service but when I get my results back it looks like this (see the GetChildTermsInTermSetResult node):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
    <soap:Body>
        <GetChildTermsInTermSetResponse xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/taxonomy/soap/">
            <GetChildTermsInTermSetResult>&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?&gt;&lt;TermStore&gt;&lt;T a9="3ebb7649-a9eb-49ce-9589-4caad51ad7d7" a21="false" a61="0"&gt;&lt;LS&gt;&lt;TL a32="1" a31="true" /&gt;&lt;/LS&gt;&lt;DS /&gt;&lt;TMS&gt;&lt;TM a24="9c46e833-5154-4ceb-9dd6-4c0538dab600" a12="AssessorBookPages" a40="" a17="true" a67="" a45="3ebb7649-a9eb-49ce-9589-4caad51ad7d7" a69="true" /&gt;&lt;/TMS&gt;&lt;/T&gt;&lt;T a9="fe4366be-5906-4be0-ae12-a02f0ded885f" a21="false" a61="0"&gt;&lt;LS&gt;&lt;TL a32="2" a31="true" /&gt;&lt;/LS&gt;&lt;DS /&gt;&lt;TMS&gt;&lt;TM a24="9c46e833-5154-4ceb-9dd6-4c0538dab600" a12="AssessorBookPages" a40="" a17="true" a67="" a45="fe4366be-5906-4be0-ae12-a02f0ded885f" a69="true" /&gt;&lt;/TMS&gt;&lt;/T&gt;&lt;T a9="6c38bc09-d345-4ae8-9131-a10731159f15" a21="false" a61="0"&gt;&lt;LS&gt;&lt;TL a32="3" a31="true" /&gt;&lt;/LS&gt;&lt;DS /&gt;&lt;TMS&gt;&lt;TM a24="9c46e833-5154-4ceb-9dd6-4c0538dab600" a12="AssessorBookPages" a40="" a17="true" a67="" a45="6c38bc09-d345-4ae8-9131-a10731159f15" a69="true" /&gt;&lt;/TMS&gt;&lt;/T&gt;&lt;T a9="a9349b48-27dc-4e6c-9c62-ca43d9704e45" a21="false" a61="0"&gt;&lt;LS&gt;&lt;TL a32="4" a31="true" /&gt;&lt;/LS&gt;&lt;DS /&gt;&lt;TMS&gt;&lt;TM a24="9c46e833-5154-4ceb-9dd6-4c0538dab600" a12="AssessorBookPages" a40="" a17="true" a67="" a45="a9349b48-27dc-4e6c-9c62-ca43d9704e45" a69="true" /&gt;&lt;/TMS&gt;&lt;/T&gt;&lt;/TermStore&gt;</GetChildTermsInTermSetResult>
        </GetChildTermsInTermSetResponse>
    </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

I am using jQuery/AJAX to call this service. I need to parse this result from my jQuery and have resorted to some pretty hairy shenanigans to try to get it working.

Is it supposed to return GetChildTermsInTermSetResult as escaped XML? If so, why?

Answer 1

It's completley correct.

The GetChildTermsInTermSet method returns a string and not a complex type.