jQuery ajax post to web service

$(document).ready(function() {
        $.ajax({ type: "POST",
                        url: "/getprojects.ashx",
                        data: "<formData client=\"\" year=\"\" categories=\"\" tags=\"\" freeText=\"\" count=\"34\" page=\"1\"></formData>",
                        dataType: "text/xml",
                        cache: false,
                        error: function() { alert("No data found."); },
                        success: function(xml) {
                            alert("it works");
                            alert($(xml).find("project")[0].attr("id"));
                        }
        });
    });

My problem is i get some data back but i can't seem to get it displayed.

dataType should be the type of what you receive but contentType should be the mime-type of what you are sending, the following should be ok:

$(document).ready(function() {
        $.ajax({ type: "POST",
                        url: "/getprojects.ashx",
                        data: "<formData client=\"\" year=\"\" categories=\"\" tags=\"\" freeText=\"\" count=\"34\" page=\"1\"></formData>",
                        contentType: "text/xml",
                        dataType: "xml",
                        cache: false,
                        error: function() { alert("No data found."); },
                        success: function(xml) {
                            alert("it works");
                            alert($(xml).find("project")[0].attr("id"));
                        }
        });
    });

Your dataType seems to be wrong. It should look like

dataType: "xml"

Your data structure also looks pretty wierd. Have a look at .serializeArray(). It should be standard query string foo=bar&test=bla etc.

If the success handler gets executed, try to lookup your xml variable plain, without operating on it with .find() or whatever. Still empty?