Question

This does not work on IE8, but in all other browsers:

myDialog = $('#myDialog');
somethingHere = $('#somethingHere');

In other words, if the variable name and the element id name are the SAME jQuery 1.5.1 dies on IE8.

As long as they are different it works.

myDialog1 = $('myDialog');

Took me just 3 hours to realize that. 😐

Is that a bug or expected behavior?

Answer 1

This probably has to do with the fact that if you declare a global variable with the same name as a DOM element ID, it will conflict in the global namespace. I think this will cause you problems in any browser, maybe IE just complains more. e.g. in a script debugger in any browser:

<div id="myDialog">

> window.myDialog

.. <div id="myDialog">

> myDialog = "hello";

.. "hello"

>  window.myDialog

.. "hello"

Whoops! No longer possible to reference the DOM element by ID. DOM element IDs and global variable share the same namespace.