Question

Here’s what I’m working with

Code:

<a href="#" onclick="window.onpopstate = function() { alert('pop'); };
    return false; ">set up window.onpopstate
</a><br>
<a href="#somehash2">change hash</a>
<div onclick="alert(location.href);">show location.href</div>​

Why does clicking the change hash link fire the popstate, shouldn’t it only be fired if I click the change hash link then click back?

Answer 1

The reason window.onpopstate fires are not because of a change to the hash.
It’s because the history has been changed when you click on the anchor tag.

From https://developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM/window.onpopstate :

A popstate event is dispatched to the window every time the active
history entry changes. If the history entry being activated was
created by a call to history.pushState() or was affected by a call to
history.replaceState(), the popstate event’s state property contains a
copy of the history entry’s state object.