[Javascript] Poorly documented facet of cross-frame execution

Wed Apr 9 06:07:57 CDT 2003

David,

What, in the circumstances you describe, is wrong with

parent.frameA.foobar();
or 
parent.frames["frameA"].foobar();

?

Since this is what I now write, and it works, I am very interested, and 
I have no doubt you have a cogent reason.
If necessary I will change all my code, always willing to learn 
something I did not know.

Rodney

David T. Lovering wrote:

>A number of folks have been alluding to coding structures that require invoking routines across frames (parent/child, child/parent, peer/peer), including IFRAMEs.  One of the elements that seems to be missing from the standard documentation and the
>JavaScript/JScript RFC's (including the W3C state model) is the fact that when invoking JavaScript one must consider the placement within the target frame as to how one addresses it.
>
>For example, if we have two peer frames (frameA and frameB), each containing mycode1.html and mycode2.html respectively, and it is intended that mycode2.html invoke a JavaScript routine 'foobar()' which exists in a <script
>language='JavaScript'>...</script> block in the header of mycode1.html, the following will NOT work:
>
>  parent.document.frames["frameA"].document.foobar();
>
>The reason is that the 'document' object in frameA's code module doesn't REALLY begin until it hits the <body> tag.  The correct procedure is therefore
>
>  parent.document.frames["frameA"].foobar();
>
>  
>
<snip>