Question

I’m working with a legacy frames website that was just moved into an iFrame.

Assuming I have the following function:

<script language = "javascript">
  function myFunction(){
    <!-- no console.log in IE 7 (my required target browser) -->
    alert('sup, yo?'); 
  }
</script>

and the following hyperlink triggering the function:

<a href="javascript:myFunction();" target="_top">click me</a>

before the move into an iFrame this worked ok. Once the website was moved into the iframe, clicking the link in IE (not FF or Chrome), I would get the ever-so-helpful error:

Line: 1
Object expected

Once I removed the target="_top" attribute the function would work, so I don’t need help solving the problem, but my question is:

What is IE doing with the target attribute when calling a javascript function to invoke this behavior? I don’t have other versions of IE installed, is this current behavior in 8+ as well?

Thanks.

Answer 1

It does not make sense to try to understand the behavior. You’re using a technique that is not well defined and is not used by developers nowadays.

Instead of href="javascript:myFunction();, just use onclick="myFunction(); return false" or even better, set the handler from JS like the following

<a href="pageForUsersWithoutJs.html" id="my-link" >click me</a>
<script type="text/javascript">
// This is old school, but works for all browsers, you should use a library instead
document.getElementById('my-link').onclick = function() {
    // Do your thing
    return false; // so the link isn't followed
};
</script>