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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-23T09:29:11+00:00

As far as I can tell, web workers need to be written in a

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As far as I can tell, web workers need to be written in a separate JavaScript file, and called like this: 

new Worker('longrunning.js')

I’m using the closure compiler to combine and minify all my JavaScript source code, and I’d rather not have to have my workers in separate files for distribution. Is there some way to do this?

new Worker(function() {
    //Long-running work here
});

Given that first-class functions are so crucial to JavaScript, why does the standard way to do background work have to load a whole other JavaScript file from the web server?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/workers/basics/#toc-inlineworkers

    What if you want to create your worker script on the fly, or create a self-contained page without having to create separate worker files? With Blob(), you can "inline" your worker in the same HTML file as your main logic by creating a URL handle to the worker code as a string

    Full example of BLOB inline worker:

    <!DOCTYPE html>
<script id="worker1" type="javascript/worker">
  // This script won't be parsed by JS engines because its type is javascript/worker.
  self.onmessage = function(e) {
    self.postMessage('msg from worker');
  };
  // Rest of your worker code goes here.
</script>
<script>
  var blob = new Blob([
    document.querySelector('#worker1').textContent
  ], { type: "text/javascript" })

  // Note: window.webkitURL.createObjectURL() in Chrome 10+.
  var worker = new Worker(window.URL.createObjectURL(blob));
  worker.onmessage = function(e) {
    console.log("Received: " + e.data);
  }
  worker.postMessage("hello"); // Start the worker.
</script>
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