Yet another IE/W3C confusion

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  • Don

    Yet another IE/W3C confusion

    I was recently handed responsibility for a web site that is a
    combination of ASP, javascript, and some cgi-bin style programs which
    generate HTML with javascript. Though I'm new to javascript, the
    language isn't causing my any headaches but the difference in how code
    gets processed by different browsers is enough to send me searching for
    Zoloft.

    One of the generated pages has this general structure:

    <html>
    <head>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="/main.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="/file.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript" language="JavaS cript">
    var url="http://www.yadayada.ne t";
    var name="yada";
    </script>
    <title>Title</title>
    </head>
    <body onload="init(); " >
    <script type="text/javascript" src="/menu.js"></script>
    ....
    </body>
    </html>

    main.js contains general purpose functions used within the body
    init() is in file.js and sets up for code in menu.js
    menu.js references functions in file.js

    The javascript in menu.js was slanted heavily toward IE 4, looks like it
    supports NS 4, and doesn't function properly in NS6/Mozilla. So I
    reworked it to work with the W3C DOM. Running from files on my local
    drive, the pages and menus displayed correctly in both IE6 and Mozilla
    1.3 so I pushed them over to the test server. Loaded from there the
    code works correctly in Mozilla but in IE6 it throws an error because it
    can't find the init() function which is in file.js Taking init() out of
    the body tag makes no difference to Mozilla which continues to display
    the menu correctly. But without the init() IE shows nothing.

    However, if instead of using a <script ... src=file.js> tag, I take the
    code from file.js and but it in-line within a script block, IE can find
    the init() function and display everything correctly.

    It looks as if IE is holding of on reading the script files until after
    the body has loaded. Since it hasn't read the file with the init()
    function in it, it can't find it.

    Has anyone else seen anything like this?

  • David Dorward

    #2
    Re: Yet another IE/W3C confusion

    Don wrote:
    [color=blue]
    > However, if instead of using a <script ... src=file.js> tag, I take the
    > code from file.js and but it in-line within a script block, IE can find
    > the init() function and display everything correctly.[/color]
    [color=blue]
    > Has anyone else seen anything like this?[/color]

    Only when somebody slipped HTML (<--//) in to the external JavaScript file.
    A URL makes these things much easier to troubleshoot.

    --
    David Dorward http://david.us-lot.org/
    Redesign in progress: http://stone.thecoreworlds.net/
    Microsoft announces IE is dead (so upgrade):

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