JavaScript: The Definitive Guide

SIXTH EDITION

JavaScript: The Definitive Guide

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JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, Sixth Edition
by David Flanagan

Copyright © 2011 David Flanagan. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472.

O’Reilly books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. Online editions
This book is dedicated to all who teach peace
and resist violence.
 Table of Contents

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

1. Introduction to JavaScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Core JavaScript 4
1.2 Client-Side JavaScript 8

Part I. Core JavaScript

2. Lexical Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.1 Character Set 21
2.2 Comments 23
2.3 Literals 23
2.4 Identifiers and Reserved Words 23
2.5 Optional Semicolons 25

3. Types, Values, and Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

3.1 Numbers 31
3.2 Text 36
3.3 Boolean Values 40
 4.4 Property Access Expressions 60
4.5 Invocation Expressions 61
4.6 Object Creation Expressions 61
4.7 Operator Overview 62
4.8 Arithmetic Expressions 66
4.9 Relational Expressions 71
4.10 Logical Expressions 75
4.11 Assignment Expressions 77
4.12 Evaluation Expressions 79
4.13 Miscellaneous Operators 82

5. Statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
5.1 Expression Statements 88
5.2 Compound and Empty Statements 88
5.3 Declaration Statements 89
5.4 Conditionals 92
5.5 Loops 97
5.6 Jumps 102
5.7 Miscellaneous Statements 108
5.8 Summary of JavaScript Statements 112

6. Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
6.1 Creating Objects 116
6.2 Querying and Setting Properties 120
6.3 Deleting Properties 124
6.4 Testing Properties 125
6.5 Enumerating Properties 126
6.6 Property Getters and Setters 128
6.7 Property Attributes 131
6.8 Object Attributes 135
6.9 Serializing Objects 138
6.10 Object Methods 138

7. Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
7.1 Creating Arrays 141
7.2 Reading and Writing Array Elements 142
7.3 Sparse Arrays 144
7.4 Array Length 144
7.5 Adding and Deleting Array Elements 145
7.6 Iterating Arrays 146
7.7 Multidimensional Arrays 148
7.8 Array Methods 148
7.9 ECMAScript 5 Array Methods 153
7.10 Array Type 157

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 7.11 Array-Like Objects 158
7.12 Strings As Arrays 160

8. Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
8.1 Defining Functions 164
8.2 Invoking Functions 166
8.3 Function Arguments and Parameters 171
8.4 Functions As Values 176
8.5 Functions As Namespaces 178
8.6 Closures 180
8.7 Function Properties, Methods, and Constructor 186
8.8 Functional Programming 191

9. Classes and Modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

9.1 Classes and Prototypes 200
9.2 Classes and Constructors 201
9.3 Java-Style Classes in JavaScript 205
9.4 Augmenting Classes 208
9.5 Classes and Types 209
9.6 Object-Oriented Techniques in JavaScript 215
9.7 Subclasses 228
9.8 Classes in ECMAScript 5 238
9.9 Modules 246

10. Pattern Matching with Regular Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

10.1 Defining Regular Expressions 251
10.2 String Methods for Pattern Matching 259
10.3 The RegExp Object 261

11. JavaScript Subsets and Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265

11.1 JavaScript Subsets 266
11.2 Constants and Scoped Variables 269
11.3 Destructuring Assignment 271
11.4 Iteration 274
11.5 Shorthand Functions 282
11.6 Multiple Catch Clauses 283
11.7 E4X: ECMAScript for XML 283

12. Server-Side JavaScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

12.1 Scripting Java with Rhino 289
12.2 Asynchronous I/O with Node 296

Table of Contents | ix
Part II. Client-Side JavaScript

13. JavaScript in Web Browsers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

13.1 Client-Side JavaScript 307
13.2 Embedding JavaScript in HTML 311
13.3 Execution of JavaScript Programs 317
13.4 Compatibility and Interoperability 325
13.5 Accessibility 332
13.6 Security 332
13.7 Client-Side Frameworks 338

14. The Window Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341

14.1 Timers 341
14.2 Browser Location and Navigation 343
14.3 Browsing History 345
14.4 Browser and Screen Information 346
14.5 Dialog Boxes 348
14.6 Error Handling 351
14.7 Document Elements As Window Properties 351
14.8 Multiple Windows and Frames 353

15. Scripting Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361

15.1 Overview of the DOM 361
15.2 Selecting Document Elements 364
15.3 Document Structure and Traversal 371
15.4 Attributes 375
15.5 Element Content 378
15.6 Creating, Inserting, and Deleting Nodes 382
15.7 Example: Generating a Table of Contents 387
15.8 Document and Element Geometry and Scrolling 389
15.9 HTML Forms 396
15.10 Other Document Features 405

16. Scripting CSS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413

16.1 Overview of CSS 414
16.2 Important CSS Properties 419
16.3 Scripting Inline Styles 431
16.4 Querying Computed Styles 435
16.5 Scripting CSS Classes 437
16.6 Scripting Stylesheets 440

17. Handling Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445

17.1 Types of Events 447

x | Table of Contents
 17.2 Registering Event Handlers 456
17.3 Event Handler Invocation 460
17.4 Document Load Events 465
17.5 Mouse Events 467
17.6 Mousewheel Events 471
17.7 Drag and Drop Events 474
17.8 Text Events 481
17.9 Keyboard Events 484

18. Scripted HTTP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491

18.1 Using XMLHttpRequest 494
18.2 HTTP by <script>: JSONP 513
18.3 Comet with Server-Sent Events 515

19. The jQuery Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523

19.1 jQuery Basics 524
19.2 jQuery Getters and Setters 531
19.3 Altering Document Structure 537
19.4 Handling Events with jQuery 540
19.5 Animated Effects 551
19.6 Ajax with jQuery 558
19.7 Utility Functions 571
19.8 jQuery Selectors and Selection Methods 574
19.9 Extending jQuery with Plug-ins 582
19.10 The jQuery UI Library 585

20. Client-Side Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587

20.1 localStorage and sessionStorage 589
20.2 Cookies 593
20.3 IE userData Persistence 599
20.4 Application Storage and Offline Webapps 601

21. Scripted Media and Graphics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 613

21.1 Scripting Images 613
21.2 Scripting Audio and Video 615
21.3 SVG: Scalable Vector Graphics 622
21.4 Graphics in a <canvas> 630

22. HTML5 APIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 667

22.1 Geolocation 668
22.2 History Management 671
22.3 Cross-Origin Messaging 676
22.4 Web Workers 680

Table of Contents | xi
 22.5 Typed Arrays and ArrayBuffers 687
22.6 Blobs 691
22.7 The Filesystem API 700
22.8 Client-Side Databases 705
22.9 Web Sockets 712

Part III. Core JavaScript Reference

Core JavaScript Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 719

Part IV. Client-Side JavaScript Reference

Client-Side JavaScript Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 859

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1019

xii | Table of Contents

 Preface

This book covers the JavaScript language and the JavaScript APIs implemented by web
browsers. I wrote it for readers with at least some prior programming experience who
want to learn JavaScript and also for programmers who already use JavaScript but want
to take their understanding to a new level and really master the language and the web
platform. My goal with this book is to document the JavaScript language and platform
comprehensively and definitively. As a result, this is a large and detailed book. My hope,
however, is that it will reward careful study, and that the time you spend reading it will
be easily recouped in the form of higher programming productivity.
This book is divided into four parts. Part I covers the JavaScript language itself.
Part II covers client-side JavaScript: the JavaScript APIs defined by HTML5 and related
standards and implemented by web browsers. Part III is the reference section for the
core language, and Part IV is the reference for client-side JavaScript. Chapter 1 includes
an outline of the chapters in Parts I and II (see §1.1).
This sixth edition of the book covers both ECMAScript 5 (the latest version of the core
language) and HTML5 (the latest version of the web platform). You’ll find
ECMAScript 5 material throughout Part I. The new material on HTML5 is mostly in
the chapters at the end of Part II, but there is also some in other chapters as well.
Completely new chapters in this edition include Chapter 11, JavaScript Subsets and
Extensions; Chapter 12, Server-Side JavaScript; Chapter 19, The jQuery Library; and
Chapter 22, HTML5 APIs.
Readers of previous editions may notice that I have completely rewritten many of the
chapters in this book for the sixth edition. The core of Part I—the chapters covering
objects, arrays, functions, and classes—is all new and brings the book in line with
current programming styles and best practices. Similarly, key chapters of Part II, such
as those covering documents and events, have been completely rewritten to bring them
up-to-date.

xiii
 A Note About Piracy
If you are reading a digital version of this book that you (or your employer) did not pay
for (or borrow from someone who did) then you probably have an illegally pirated copy.
Writing the sixth edition of this book was a full-time job, and it took more than a year.
The only way I get paid for that time is when readers actually buy the book. And the
only way I can afford to work on a seventh edition is if I get paid for the sixth.
I do not condone piracy, but if you have a pirated copy, go ahead and read a couple of
chapters. I think that you’ll find that this is a valuable source of information about
JavaScript, better organized and of higher quality than what you can find freely (and
legally) available on the Web. If you agree that this is a valuable source of information,
then please pay for that value by purchasing a legal copy (either digital or print) of the
book. On the other hand, if you find that this book is no more valuable than the free
information on the web, then please discard your pirated copy and use those free
information sources.

Conventions Used in This Book

I use the following typographical conventions in this book:
Italic
Is used for emphasis and to indicate the first use of a term. Italic is also used for
email addresses, URLs and file names.
Constant width
Is used in all JavaScript code and CSS and HTML listings, and generally for any-
thing that you would type literally when programming.
Constant width italic
Is used for the names of function parameters, and generally as a placeholder to
indicate an item that should be replaced with an actual value in your program.

Example Code
The examples in this book are available online. You can find them linked from the
book’s catalog page at the publisher’s website:
[Link]
This book is here to help you get your job done. In general, you may use the code in
this book in your programs and documentation. You do not need to contact O’Reilly
for permission unless you’re reproducing a significant portion of the code. For example,
writing a program that uses several chunks of code from this book does not require
permission. Selling or distributing a CD-ROM of examples from O’Reilly books does
require permission. Answering a question by citing this book and quoting example

xiv | Preface
code does not require permission. Incorporating a significant amount of example code
from this book into your product’s documentation does require permission.
If you use the code from this book, I appreciate, but do not require, attribution. An
attribution usually includes the title, author, publisher, and ISBN. For example: “Java-
Script: The Definitive Guide, by David Flanagan (O’Reilly). Copyright 2011 David Fla-
nagan, 978-0-596-80552-4.”
For more details on the O’Reilly code reuse policy, see [Link]
ask_tim/2001/[Link]. If you feel your use of the examples falls outside of the
permission given above, feel free to contact O’Reilly at permissions@[Link].

Errata and How to Contact Us

The publisher maintains a public list of errors found in this book. You can view the
list, and submit the errors you find, by visiting the book’s web page:
[Link]
To comment or ask technical questions about this book, send email to:
bookquestions@[Link]
For more information about our books, conferences, Resource Centers, and the
O’Reilly Network, see our website at:
[Link]
Find us on Facebook: [Link]
Follow us on Twitter: [Link]
Watch us on YouTube: [Link]

Acknowledgments
Many people have helped me with the creation of this book. I’d like to thank my editor,
Mike Loukides, for trying to keep me on schedule and for his insightful comments.
Thanks also to my technical reviewers: Zachary Kessin, who reviewed many of the
chapters in Part I, and Raffaele Cecco, who reviewed Chapter 19 and the <canvas>
material in Chapter 21. The production team at O’Reilly has done their usual fine job:
Dan Fauxsmith managed the production process, Teresa Elsey was the production
editor, Rob Romano drew the figures, and Ellen Troutman Zaig created the index.
In this era of effortless electronic communication, it is impossible to keep track of all
those who influence and inform us. I’d like to thank everyone who has answered my
questions on the es5, w3c, and whatwg mailing lists, and everyone who has shared their
insightful ideas about JavaScript programming online. I’m sorry I can’t list you all by

Preface | xv
name, but it is a pleasure to work within such a vibrant community of JavaScript
programmers.
Editors, reviewers, and contributors to previous editions of this book have included:
Andrew Schulman, Angelo Sirigos, Aristotle Pagaltzis, Brendan Eich, Christian
Heilmann, Dan Shafer, Dave C. Mitchell, Deb Cameron, Douglas Crockford, Dr.
Tankred Hirschmann, Dylan Schiemann, Frank Willison, Geoff Stearns, Herman Ven-
ter, Jay Hodges, Jeff Yates, Joseph Kesselman, Ken Cooper, Larry Sullivan, Lynn Roll-
ins, Neil Berkman, Nick Thompson, Norris Boyd, Paula Ferguson, Peter-Paul Koch,
Philippe Le Hegaret, Richard Yaker, Sanders Kleinfeld, Scott Furman, Scott Issacs,
Shon Katzenberger, Terry Allen, Todd Ditchendorf, Vidur Apparao, and Waldemar
Horwat.
This edition of the book is substantially rewritten and kept me away from my family
for many late nights. My love to them and my thanks for putting up with my absences.
— David Flanagan ([Link]), March 2011

xvi | Preface
 CHAPTER 1
Introduction to JavaScript

JavaScript is the programming language of the Web. The overwhelming majority of

modern websites use JavaScript, and all modern web browsers—on desktops, game
consoles, tablets, and smart phones—include JavaScript interpreters, making Java-
Script the most ubiquitous programming language in history. JavaScript is part of the
triad of technologies that all Web developers must learn: HTML to specify the content
of web pages, CSS to specify the presentation of web pages, and JavaScript to specify
the behavior of web pages. This book will help you master the language.
If you are already familiar with other programming languages, it may help you to know
that JavaScript is a high-level, dynamic, untyped interpreted programming language
that is well-suited to object-oriented and functional programming styles. JavaScript
derives its syntax from Java, its first-class functions from Scheme, and its prototype-
based inheritance from Self. But you do not need to know any of those languages, or
be familiar with those terms, to use this book and learn JavaScript.
The name “JavaScript” is actually somewhat misleading. Except for a superficial syn-
tactic resemblance, JavaScript is completely different from the Java programming lan-
guage. And JavaScript has long since outgrown its scripting-language roots to become
a robust and efficient general-purpose language. The latest version of the language (see
the sidebar) defines new features for serious large-scale software development.

1
 JavaScript: Names and Versions
JavaScript was created at Netscape in the early days of the Web, and technically, “Java-
Script” is a trademark licensed from Sun Microsystems (now Oracle) used to describe
Netscape’s (now Mozilla’s) implementation of the language. Netscape submitted the
language for standardization to ECMA—the European Computer Manufacturer’s As-
sociation—and because of trademark issues, the standardized version of the language
was stuck with the awkward name “ECMAScript.” For the same trademark reasons,
Microsoft’s version of the language is formally known as “JScript.” In practice, just
about everyone calls the language JavaScript. This book uses the name “ECMAScript”
only to refer to the language standard.
For the last decade, all web browsers have implemented version 3 of the ECMAScript
standard and there has really been no need to think about version numbers: the lan-
guage standard was stable and browser implementations of the language were, for the
most part, interoperable. Recently, an important new version of the language has been
defined as ECMAScript version 5 and, at the time of this writing, browsers are beginning
to implement it. This book covers all the new features of ECMAScript 5 as well as all
the long-standing features of ECMAScript 3. You’ll sometimes see these language ver-
sions abbreviated as ES3 and ES5, just as you’ll sometimes see the name JavaScript
abbreviated as JS.
When we’re speaking of the language itself, the only version numbers that are relevant
are ECMAScript versions 3 or 5. (Version 4 of ECMAScript was under development
for years, but proved to be too ambitious and was never released.) Sometimes, however,
you’ll also see a JavaScript version number, such as JavaScript 1.5 or JavaScript 1.8.
These are Mozilla’s version numbers: version 1.5 is basically ECMAScript 3, and later
versions include nonstandard language extensions (see Chapter 11). Finally, there are
also version numbers attached to particular JavaScript interpreters or “engines.” Goo-
gle calls its JavaScript interpreter V8, for example, and at the time of this writing the
current version of the V8 engine is 3.0.

To be useful, every language must have a platform or standard library or API of func-
tions for performing things like basic input and output. The core JavaScript language
defines a minimal API for working with text, arrays, dates, and regular expressions but
does not include any input or output functionality. Input and output (as well as more
sophisticated features, such as networking, storage, and graphics) are the responsibility
of the “host environment” within which JavaScript is embedded. Usually that host
environment is a web browser (though we’ll see two uses of JavaScript without a web
browser in Chapter 12). Part I of this book covers the language itself and its minimal
built-in API. Part II explains how JavaScript is used in web browsers and covers the
sprawling browser-based APIs loosely known as “client-side JavaScript.”
Part III is the reference section for the core API. You can read about the JavaScript array
manipulation API by looking up “Array” in this part of the book, for example.
Part IV is the reference section for client-side JavaScript. You might look up “Canvas”

2 | Chapter 1: Introduction to JavaScript

in this part of the book to read about the graphics API defined by the HTML5
<canvas> element, for example.
This book covers low-level fundamentals first, and then builds on those to more
advanced and higher-level abstractions. The chapters are intended to be read more or
less in order. But learning a new programming language is never a linear process, and
describing a language is not linear either: each language feature is related to other fea-
tures and this book is full of cross-references—sometimes backward and sometimes
forward to material you have not yet read. This chapter makes a quick first pass through
the core language and the client-side API, introducing key features that will make it
easier to understand the in-depth treatment in the chapters that follow.

Exploring JavaScript
When learning a new programming language, it’s important to try the examples in the
book, and then modify them and try them again to test your understanding of the
language. To do that, you need a JavaScript interpreter. Fortunately, every web browser
includes a JavaScript interpreter, and if you’re reading this book, you probably already
have more than one web browser installed on your computer.
We’ll see later on in this chapter that you can embed JavaScript code within <script>
tags in HTML files, and when the browser loads the file, it will execute the code. For-
tunately, however, you don’t have to do that every time you want to try out simple
snippets of JavaScript code. Spurred on by the powerful and innovative Firebug exten-
sion for Firefox (pictured in Figure 1-1 and available for download from [Link]
.com/), today’s web browsers all include web developer tools that are indispensable for
debugging, experimenting, and learning. You can usually find these tools in the Tools
menu of the browser under names like “Developer Tools” or “Web Console.”
(Firefox 4 includes a built-in “Web Console,” but at the time of this writing, the Firebug
extension is better.) Often, you can call up a console with a keystroke like F12 or Ctrl-
Shift-J. These console tools often appear as panes at the top or bottom of the browser
window, but some allow you to open them as separate windows (as pictured in Fig-
ure 1-1), which is often quite convenient.
A typical “developer tools” pane or window includes multiple tabs that allow you to
inspect things like HTML document structure, CSS styles, network requests, and so
on. One of the tabs is a “JavaScript console” that allows you to type in lines of JavaScript
code and try them out. This is a particularly easy way to play around with JavaScript,
and I recommend that you use it as you read this book.
There is a simple console API that is portably implemented by modern browsers. You
can use the function [Link]() to display text on the console. This is often sur-
prisingly helpful while debugging, and some of the examples in this book (even in the
core language section) use [Link]() to perform simple output. A similar but more
intrusive way to display output or debugging messages is by passing a string of text to
the alert() function, which displays it in a modal dialog box.

Introduction to JavaScript | 3
Figure 1-1. The Firebug debugging console for Firefox

1.1 Core JavaScript

This section is a tour of the JavaScript language, and also a tour of Part I of this book.
After this introductory chapter, we dive into JavaScript at the lowest level: Chapter 2,
Lexical Structure, explains things like JavaScript comments, semicolons, and the Uni-
code character set. Chapter 3, Types, Values, and Variables, starts to get more inter-
esting: it explains JavaScript variables and the values you can assign to those variables.
Here’s some sample code to illustrate the highlights of those two chapters:
// Anything following double slashes is an English-language comment.
// Read the comments carefully: they explain the JavaScript code.

// variable is a symbolic name for a value.

// Variables are declared with the var keyword:
var x; // Declare a variable named x.

// Values can be assigned to variables with an = sign

x = 0; // Now the variable x has the value 0
x // => 0: A variable evaluates to its value.

// JavaScript supports several types of values

x = 1; // Numbers.
x = 0.01; // Just one Number type for integers and reals.
x = "hello world"; // Strings of text in quotation marks.
x = 'JavaScript'; // Single quote marks also delimit strings.
x = true; // Boolean values.
x = false; // The other Boolean value.

4 | Chapter 1: Introduction to JavaScript