Question

Is it possible in Javascript to pass a variable through the src parameter? ie.

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://domain.com/twitter.js?handle=aplusk" />`

I’d like twitter.js to look and see if a “handle” was passed before doing what I need it to do and returning its response back to the originating page calling twitter.js.

I had originally created a function in twitter.js that did the following:

function getHandle() {
  var vars = [], hash, username;
  var hashes = window.location.href.slice(window.location.href.indexOf('?') + 1).split('&');

  for(var i = 0; i < hashes.length; i++) {
    hash = hashes[i].split('=');
    if (hash[0] == 'handle') 
     username = hash[1];
  }

  return username;
}

The problem, and it makes sense, is that window.location.href is not going to work on a file that I’m calling from <script src="" />

Thanks!

Answer 1

I can see two solutions here.

First: you can process those GET parameters on the server where the twitter.js is hosted, so that it will dynamically change the js file. For example, you file is:

var handle = {{ handle }};

And your server somehow processes the file, replacing that twitter.js template file dependent on what request was sent.

The second option would be to set the global variables on the page where twitter.js is loaded, like this:

<script type="text/javascript">
    window.twitter_js_handle = 'aplusk';
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://domain.com/twitter.js" />

And in twitter.js:

var handle = window.twitter_js_handle || null;