Dynamically including javascript files only once - javascript

I have a javascript function I'm writing which is being used to include an external JS file, but only once. The reason I need such a function is because it is being called when some content is loaded via AJAX and I need to run page-specific code to that content (no, just using .live won't cover it).
Here's my attempt, shortened for brevity:
$.include_once = function(filename) {
if ($("script[src='" + filename + "']").length === 0) {
var $node = $("<script></script>")
.attr({
src : filename,
type : "text/javascript"
})
;
$(document.body).append($node);
}
};
This works fine: the function is called, it loads the external file, and that file is being run when loaded. Perfect.
The problem is that it will always re-load that external file: the query I'm using to check for the presence of the script always finds nothing!
When debugging this, I added some lines:
alert($("script").length); // alerts: 4
$(document.body).append($node);
alert($("script").length); // alerts: 4
Looking in the dynamic source (the HTML tab of Firebug), I can't find the script tag at all.
I know that I could maintain an array of files that I've previously included, but I was hoping to go with a method such as this, which (if it worked), seems a bit more robust, since not all the JS files are being included in this way.
Can anyone explain the behaviour seen in this second snippet?

jQuery is a bit of a dumb-dumb in this case; it doesn't do at all what you'd expect. When you append($node) jQuery does this:
jQuery.ajax({
url: $node.src,
async: false,
dataType: "script"
})
Woops! For local files (eg on the same domain) jQuery performs a standard XMLHttpRequest for the .js file body, and proceeds to "eval" it by a whole convoluted process of creating a <script> tag (again!) and settings it's contents to your .js file body. This is to simulate eval but in the global context.
For cross-domain files, since it cannot perform the standard XMLHttpRequest due to the same-domain policy, jQuery once again creates a <script> element and inserts it into <head>.
In both the local and cross-domain cases above jQuery finally gets around to doing this:
head.removeChild(script);
And booms your .length check! Bummer.
So on to your problem, don't bother jQuery with this. Just do
document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0]
.appendChild(
document.createElement('script')
)
.src = filename;
Which will do what you'd expect, particularly wrt querying for it later.

You're trying to solve a problem that has already been solved several times over. Try LazyLoad for example. There are also similar plugins for jQuery.

Instead of setting the source attribute of the script-tag, set the "text" attribute of the script tag. This works in all modern browsers (the application where I use that in practice does not support IE6, so I do not know about this creep...).
In practice it would look like this (you HAVE TO add code to omit double inclusion on yourself - e.g. a simple array of all alread loaded scripts, though thats very application specific, and why should you anyway load code twice? try to omit double-loading code...!):
var script_source_code_string = <some dynamically loaded script source code>;
var $n = $("<script></script>");
$n.get(0).text = script_source_code_string;
$(document.body).append($n);
Or even simpler (without jquery, my code at this stage does not know jquery, it may also be loaded dynamically):
var script_source_code_string = <some dynamically loaded script source code>;
var s = document.createElement('script');
document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(s);
s.text = script_source_code_string;

Related

Including dynamic script in jQuery [duplicate]

Any idea why the piece of code below does not add the script element to the DOM?
var code = "<script></script>";
$("#someElement").append(code);
The Good News is:
It's 100% working.
Just add something inside the script tag such as alert('voila!');. The right question you might want to ask perhaps, "Why didn't I see it in the DOM?".
Karl Swedberg has made a nice explanation to visitor's comment in jQuery API site. I don't want to repeat all his words, you can read directly there here (I found it hard to navigate through the comments there).
All of jQuery's insertion methods use
a domManip function internally to
clean/process elements before and
after they are inserted into the DOM.
One of the things the domManip
function does is pull out any script
elements about to be inserted and run
them through an "evalScript routine"
rather than inject them with the rest
of the DOM fragment. It inserts the
scripts separately, evaluates them,
and then removes them from the DOM.
I believe that one of the reasons jQuery
does this is to avoid "Permission
Denied" errors that can occur in
Internet Explorer when inserting
scripts under certain circumstances.
It also avoids repeatedly
inserting/evaluating the same script
(which could potentially cause
problems) if it is within a containing
element that you are inserting and
then moving around the DOM.
The next thing is, I'll summarize what's the bad news by using .append() function to add a script.
And The Bad News is..
You can't debug your code.
I'm not joking, even if you add debugger; keyword between the line you want to set as breakpoint, you'll be end up getting only the call stack of the object without seeing the breakpoint on the source code, (not to mention that this keyword only works in webkit browser, all other major browsers seems to omit this keyword).
If you fully understand what your code does, than this will be a minor drawback. But if you don't, you will end up adding a debugger; keyword all over the place just to find out what's wrong with your (or my) code. Anyway, there's an alternative, don't forget that javascript can natively manipulate HTML DOM.
Workaround.
Use javascript (not jQuery) to manipulate HTML DOM
If you don't want to lose debugging capability, than you can use javascript native HTML DOM manipulation. Consider this example:
var script = document.createElement("script");
script.type = "text/javascript";
script.src = "path/to/your/javascript.js"; // use this for linked script
script.text = "alert('voila!');" // use this for inline script
document.body.appendChild(script);
There it is, just like the old days isn't it. And don't forget to clean things up whether in the DOM or in the memory for all object that's referenced and not needed anymore to prevent memory leaks. You can consider this code to clean things up:
document.body.removechild(document.body.lastChild);
delete UnusedReferencedObjects; // replace UnusedReferencedObject with any object you created in the script you load.
The drawback from this workaround is that you may accidentally add a duplicate script, and that's bad. From here you can slightly mimic .append() function by adding an object verification before adding, and removing the script from the DOM right after it was added. Consider this example:
function AddScript(url, object){
if (object != null){
// add script
var script = document.createElement("script");
script.type = "text/javascript";
script.src = "path/to/your/javascript.js";
document.body.appendChild(script);
// remove from the dom
document.body.removeChild(document.body.lastChild);
return true;
} else {
return false;
};
};
function DeleteObject(UnusedReferencedObjects) {
delete UnusedReferencedObjects;
}
This way, you can add script with debugging capability while safe from script duplicity. This is just a prototype, you can expand for whatever you want it to be. I have been using this approach and quite satisfied with this. Sure enough I will never use jQuery .append() to add a script.
I've seen issues where some browsers don't respect some changes when you do them directly (by which I mean creating the HTML from text like you're trying with the script tag), but when you do them with built-in commands things go better. Try this:
var script = document.createElement( 'script' );
script.type = 'text/javascript';
script.src = url;
$("#someElement").append( script );
From: JSON for jQuery
It is possible to dynamically load a JavaScript file using the jQuery function getScript
$.getScript('http://www.whatever.com/shareprice/shareprice.js', function() {
Display.sharePrice();
});
Now the external script will be called, and if it cannot be loaded it will gracefully degrade.
What do you mean "not working"?
jQuery detects that you're trying to create a SCRIPT element and will automatically run the contents of the element within the global context. Are you telling me that this doesn't work for you? -
$('#someElement').append('<script>alert("WORKING");</script>');
Edit: If you're not seeing the SCRIPT element in the DOM (in Firebug for example) after you run the command that's because jQuery, like I said, will run the code and then will delete the SCRIPT element - I believe that SCRIPT elements are always appended to the body... but anyway - placement has absolutely no bearing on code execution in this situation.
This works:
$('body').append($("<script>alert('Hi!');<\/script>")[0]);
It seems like jQuery is doing something clever with scripts so you need to append the html element rather than jQuery object.
Try this may be helpful:
var fileref=document.createElement('script');
fileref.setAttribute("type","text/javascript");
fileref.setAttribute("src","scriptAnalytics.js");
document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(fileref);
I want to do the same thing but to append a script tag in other frame!
var url = 'library.js';
var script = window.parent.frames[1].document.createElement('script' );
script.type = 'text/javascript';
script.src = url;
$('head',window.parent.frames[1].document).append(script);
<script>
...
...jQuery("<script></script>")...
...
</script>
The </script> within the string literal terminates the entire script, to avoid that "</scr" + "ipt>" can be used instead.
Adding the sourceURL in the script file helped as mentioned in this page:
https://blog.getfirebug.com/2009/08/11/give-your-eval-a-name-with-sourceurl/
In the script file, add a statement with sourceURL like "//# sourceURL=foo.js"
Load the script using jQuery $.getScript() and the script will be available in "sources" tab in chrome dev tools
Your script is executing , you just can't use document.write from it. Use an alert to test it and avoid using document.write. The statements of your js file with document.write will not be executed and the rest of the function will be executed.
This is what I think is the best solution. Google Analytics is injected this way.
var (function(){
var p="https:" == document.location.protocol ? "https://" : "http://";
d=document,
g=d.createElement('script'),
s=d.getElementsByTagName('script')[0];
g.type='text/javascript';
g.src=p+'url-to-your-script.js';
s.parentNode.insertBefore(g,s); })();
You don't need jQuery to create a Script DOM Element. It can be done with vanilla ES6 like so:
const script = "console.log('Did it work?')"
new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){
a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];
a.innerText=g;
a.onload=r;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)}
)(window,document,'script',script, resolve())
}).then(() => console.log('Sure did!'))
It doesn't need to be wrapped in a Promise, but doing so allows you to resolve the promise when the script loads, helping prevent race conditions for long-running scripts.
Append script to body:
$(document).ready(function() {
$("<script>", { src : "bootstrap.min.js", type : "text/javascript" }).appendTo("body");
});
Another way you can do it if you want to append code is using the document.createElement method but then using .innerHTML instead of .src.
var script = document.createElement( 'script' );
script.type = 'text/javascript';
script.innerHTML = 'alert("Hey there... you just appended this script to the body");';
$("body").append( script );
I tried this one and works fine. Just replace the < symbol with that \x3C.
// With Variable
var code = "\x3Cscript>SomeCode\x3C/script>";
$("#someElement").append(code);
or
//Without Variable
$("#someElement").append("\x3Cscript>SomeCode\x3C/script>");
You can test the code here.
Can try like this
var code = "<script></" + "script>";
$("#someElement").append(code);
The only reason you can't do "<script></script>" is because the string isn't allowed inside javascript because the DOM layer can't parse what's js and what's HTML.
I wrote an npm package that lets you take an HTML string, including script tags and append it to a container while executing the scripts
Example:
import appendHtml from 'appendhtml';
const html = '<p>Hello</p><script src="some_js_file.js"></script>';
const container = document.getElementById('some-div');
await appendHtml(html, container);
// appendHtml returns a Promise, some_js_file.js is now loaded and executed (note the await)
Find it here: https://www.npmjs.com/package/appendhtml
Just create an element by parsing it with jQuery.
<div id="someElement"></div>
<script>
var code = "<script>alert(123);<\/script>";
$("#someElement").append($(code));
</script>
Working example: https://plnkr.co/edit/V2FE28Q2eBrJoJ6PUEBz

Javascript - Getting a script's own souce code from within the script

So I have a problem where I need to get the entirety of a script's source code as a string (whether it's an inline script or a script that uses the src attribute) from within the script itself, but without knowing beforehand exactly what script it is. I can't just do an XHR for that reason. Several scripts on the page will listen for events, and when they handle them they will also run code that identifies the script's own source code. How should I do this?
function identifySelf() {
// Some code here
return mysource; // should return the source code of the script in which this function is defined
}
You will need to identify each script tag with an id. Then
var script=document.getElementById("my_id");
var content=script.innerHTML || "";
if(content==null || content==""){
var src=script.src;
// ajax in the script, I'm not going to write the code because I'm on mobile
// I'm assuming you can write it yourself
}
EDIT: sorry, I didn't read your question fully. If you need to return the content right away, you will need to ajax in scripts' content on page load, and the return cached content. There is no way to just get the innerHTML like that.

Elegant way of extracting an object from a cross-domain script

In order to load some geojson data, I need to source scripts on an external domain, say http://www.stat.ucla.edu/~jeroen/files/la_county_simplified.min.json. I have no control over the contents of this script; all I know is the url, and the name of an object defined in the script that I am interested in. A dummy version of the script looks like:
var my_data = {"foo" : 123, "bar" : 456}
Now in my application, I would like to load the my_data object dynamically from its URL. Because it is cross domain, I can't use ajax. It isn't quite jsonp either, because my script defines an object, not a function. One way would be to insert it simply as a <script> in the head of the current document. However, I would like to avoid possible side effects.
What would be a cleaner solution? I was thinking of creating an <iframe> and then inserting the <script> tag in the iframe, and extracting the object once the iframe has loaded. However I am not sure this is a reliable method that will work cross browsers (especially binding a callback to extract the object after the script has been loaded in the iframe).
Is there some library or standard solution to load a script in a clean page, and extract copy over a particular object to the main page? I already have a dependency on jQuery so that would be fine.
If you plan to do this pure client-side and can't format your data, you could use JSONP with a twist. Instead of modifying the data to fit the callback, we refit the loader to adopt to the data.
We listen for the onload of the script. When the script loads, the variable should now be in the global scope and we execute our callback, which passes that global variable into our callback.
//your script loader
function loadData(url,varName,callback){
var script = document.createElement('script');
document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(script);
//when the script loads, we pass in `window.my_data`
script.onload = function(){
callback.call(this,window[varName]);
};
script.src = url;
}
//using it
loadData('http://example.com/somefile.js','my_data',function(data){
//executes when script is loaded, where data is `my_data`
});
The drawback of this approach is that every time you are loading the script, you are loading it into the global scope, and collisions could happen.
There is no other way around it since you have to beat the same origin policy you have to load the script in a new script tag, JSONP works this way too but jquery hides it for you.
Either that or the site has cors headers, if the site has no cors headers here is how you can load the data (not using jsonp because it isn't in jsonp format):
function loadJS(url){
var s=document.createElement("script");
s.src=url;
$(s).on("load",function(){
console.log("var abvailable");//do something with the variable here
$(s).remove();
});
document.head.appendChild(s);
}
loadJS("http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.9.1.min.js");
The iframe method should work fine:
create an iframe
inject a script tag that points to the file
on script load, retrieve the object
The only cross-browser issue I can think of is that you'll need to use addEventListener in modern browsers and attachEvent in old IE.
This is a standard use of an iframe as sandbox - if I understand correctly you are worried about possible conflicts with global variable names.
[Update] To address some of your comments, here is some cross-browser code:
To add an event listener:
function addEvent(element,event,fn,capture){
// capture defaults to false if omitted
if (element.addEventListener) {element.addEventListener(event,fn,(capture||false));}
// else for old IE
else {element.attachEvent('on'+event,fn);}
};
To access the iframe document:
function iframeDocument(ifr){
var doc=ifr.contentWindow||ifr.contentDocument;
if (doc.document) doc=doc.document;
return doc;
};
If you use jQuery, .on("load") and $(ifr).contents() will take care of these cross-browser compatibility issues.
JSON-P is a way of loading JavaScript from a remote domain.
The return format of the JavaScript is to invoke a function with the response data as an parameter.
someGlobalFunctionName({/* your response data */});
function someGlobalFunctionName(data) { /* do something with data */ }
Since the data is contained in an object and passed to a function, there is no global leakage other than the global function itself, which is unavoidable.
More info: http://json-p.org/

How can I use jQuery 1.5.2+ on a Firefox addon?

At first I made a function that received a parameter and returned jQuery such as:
function getjQuery(window)
{
/*jquery code*/(window);
return window.jQuery;
}
But then I got an email form the review and they told me I have to use jQuery file with the original file name and completely unmodified.
I started to search for an alternative and found this solution, but there is no way it work.
jQuery object is created, but I can't find any elements. $("#id").length is always 0. With the previous method it was always found.
My current code (which doesn't work)
AddonNameSpace.jQueryAux = jQuery;
AddonNameSpace.$ = function(selector,context) {
return // correct window
new AddonNameSpace.jQueryAux.fn.init(selector,context||contentWindow);
};
AddonNameSpace.$.fn =
AddonNameSpace.$.prototype = AddonNameSpace.jQueryAux.fn;
AddonNameSpace.jQuery = AddonNameSpace.$;
The jQuery file is loading on my browser.xul overlay:
<script type="text/javascript" src="chrome://addon/content/bin/jquery-1.5.2.min.js" />
Am I loading in the right place?
How can I use jQuery to modify the content on a page (HTML) with the original jQuery file, is it even possible?
You need pass the e.originalTarget.defaultView on the second parameter on jquery..
If you don't jquery will use window.document, which is the window.document from the xul.
Use
gBrowser.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", function (e) {
$("#id", e.originalTarget.defaultView).length
}, true);
instead of
$("#id").length;
And, for avoid conflicts with other extensions don't use script in the xul page, use MozIJSSubScriptLoader.
Components.classes["#mozilla.org/moz/jssubscript-loader;1"]
.getService(Components.interfaces.mozIJSSubScriptLoader)
.loadSubScript("chrome://youraddon/content/jquery-1.5.2.min.js");
If you use this method, you load jquery only when you need, avoiding memory leak.
The preferred way to load it is with mozIJSSubScriptLoader so you don't collide with other's extensions. I'm not sure why you're having problems, I can use jQuery in my addon like $("#id").hide() with no additional code (although from the sidebar, now browser.xul).
Either way, this blog post provides a pretty good guide and even has an example xpi to download.

Javascript executing when jQuery not ready

The following scenario is a problem I am having. I came to the conclusion that jQuery must not be ready when Javascript is executing by observing this scenario.
Scenario:
I have a Java application which injects Javascript script tags into the currently loaded DOM page. The following Java code runs inline Javascript which inserts jquery.js and myCode.js. myCode.js holds my Javascript codes.
browser.executeJavaScript("var head= document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0];" +
"var script= document.createElement('script');script.type= 'text/javascript';script.src= 'jquery.js';head.appendChild(script);" +
"var script4= document.createElement('script');script4.type= 'text/javascript';script4.src= 'http://myCode.js';head.appendChild(script4);");
In this Java application, I also have a buttonListener that fires a function in myCode.js in ActionPerformed();
executedJS = browser.executeJavaScript("replaceAllLinks()");
The problem that is encountered is nullPointerException at the above line when button is clicked. Accomodating for null case results in endless loop without any changes.
while(executedJS == null) browser.executeJavaScript("replaceAllLinks()");
The cause of the problem was pinpointed down to when jQuery functions, methods are present inside replaceAllLinks(); javascript function. when jQuery, methods were absent, no problems could be observed. There was not one instance of nullPointerException raised.
The only possible underlying issue would be that somehow jQuery library is not fully loaded while replaceAllLinks(); is being executed. If jQuery methods and functions were not in use, it doesn't matter and everything runs okay.
My question is then, how can I make sure that jQuery is fully loaded and available for use?
Every script relying on jQuery should be contained inside a DOM ready function. Such a function normally takes this form:
$(document).ready(function() {
/* code here */
});
and a shortcut to achieve the same thing would be:
$(function() {
/* code here */
});
Here's the documentation for further information on the ready method:
http://api.jquery.com/ready/
Declare some global variable at the end jquery.js, e.g.
window.jQueryIsLoaded=true;
and check this variable before using jQuery.
<edit>Forget this, see Salman A's comment below, should be the right answer.</edit>

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