Accessing javascript variables in different frames in chrome

Question

I am having problems passing javascript values between frames in chrome. In other browsers (Opera and Firefox) it works. The first frame contains the following html:

<script> variable="frame 1 value";</script>
<a href="" onclick="javascript:parent.frames[1].location='test.html';">click here</a>

and test.html is:

<html>
<head>
<script>window.onload = function() {
  div = document.getElementById("fred");
  div.innerHTML="<b>" + top.frames[0].variable + "</b>";
  }
</script>
</head>
<body>
  <div id="fred">
hi there</div>
</body>
</html>

I have looked on this site and others, and the have seen a suggestion that because chrome pages run in different processes they cannot pass values. Is this true, and if so is there a way around it (cookies?)

Thanks,

russell

(edited) I just found another answer which says this happens only on file protocol. Like the writer of the other question, I am writing an applicaiton meant to be run off a cd, so I need to use file protocol. The version of Chrome I am using is 9.0.

ry

You cannot use cookies to solve this problem. See code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=535 — Mark Eirich
– Mark Eirich, Commented Feb 11, 2011 at 23:50
Fyi, javascript: does not belong into an onclick attribute. The only reason it's not a syntax error is the fact that something: defines a label and is pretty much a no-op in your case. — ThiefMaster
– ThiefMaster, Commented Jun 5, 2011 at 0:10

Mark Eirich · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-12 00:09:10Z

2

HTML5 Storage to the rescue! For the first frame:

<script>localStorage.setItem('variable', 'frame 1 value');</script>
<a href="#" onclick="javascript:parent.frames[1].location='test.html';return false">click here</a>

And for test.html:

<html><head>
    <script>
        window.onload = function() {
            div = document.getElementById("fred");
            div.innerHTML="<b>" + localStorage.getItem('variable') + "</b>";
        }
    </script>
</head><body>
    <div id="fred">hi there</div>
</body></html>

A note of caution: IE7 and some older browsers do not support localStorage. However, you should be able to use if (typeof(localStorage) == 'undefined') {} to detect which method you need to use.

answered Feb 12, 2011 at 0:09

Mark Eirich

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Comments

Vincent · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-11 23:37:19Z

1

This has something to do with cross-site scripting which may be a security issue. Since Chrome has a very strict behavior on this, it should be impossible to achieve what you want.

Fortunately, there may be a nifty trick that you can use (if your variable is only a string):

Change the link in the first frame to test.html?foo=bar
Read window.location.href in the second frame. This will yield something like "Z:\folder\test.html?foo=bar". Now you can use string manipulation functions to extract the value of foo (in case: bar) from the href.

answered Feb 11, 2011 at 23:37

Vincent

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1 Comment

russell Over a year ago

Thanks for both answers, they are both a big help. I'm going to go with Vincent's, since it seems everything should support it. I wish I had more points so I could give points :-)

Pavel Hodek · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-09 11:00:02Z

1

Frames are deprecated since 1997 (HTML 4.0 specification) for many reasons - so the best recommendation is do not use them.

You can also run Chrome with command line argument --disable-web-security, but it is also bad recommendation.

edited Apr 9, 2011 at 11:00

answered Apr 9, 2011 at 10:50

Pavel Hodek

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