strange event handling problem in IE

yb · Nov 14, 2005

Hi,

In IE I usually check for event objects in event handlers with
something like:

handler = function( e ) {
if( !e ) var e = window.event;
....
}

I am also using IE 'attachEvent' to register the event handler.
However, IE (6) passes in an empty 'e' object, and not an undefined
value. Has anyone had this problem before. I've only noticed it
recently, and I'm wondering if the windows update changed something in
IE. I'm now forced to check for both e, and the relevant property,
e.g. e && e.target

My IE version is:

6.0.2900.2180.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519

web.dev · Nov 14, 2005

yb said:
Hi,

In IE I usually check for event objects in event handlers with
something like:

handler = function( e ) {
if( !e ) var e = window.event;
....
}

Not strange at all. IE has never passed an 'e' object to an event
handler. Other browsers, such as FireFox do. That is why you check to
ensure whether or not 'e' is defined, if it's not, used IE's
window.event to assign it to 'e'.

yb · Nov 14, 2005

My point is that IE *is* passing in the 'e' object.

I'm getting an e object passed in from IE, so the check

if( !e ) var e = window.event

does not assign window.event to e, and all event handling fails.
The e object passed in is empty with no properties but not undefined

Robert · Nov 15, 2005

yb said:
Hi,

In IE I usually check for event objects in event handlers with
something like:

handler = function( e ) {
if( !e ) var e = window.event;
....
}

I am also using IE 'attachEvent' to register the event handler.
However, IE (6) passes in an empty 'e' object, and not an undefined
value. ...

My IE version is:

6.0.2900.2180.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519

I have the same version as you, but IE does not pass an empty event
object for me.
Reinstall IE? Or maybe there is some other js code that interferes with
the event.

Robert · Nov 15, 2005

web.dev said:
Not strange at all. IE has never passed an 'e' object to an event
handler.

He uses attachEvent in which case IE6 does pass an event object.

yb · Nov 15, 2005

He uses attachEvent in which case IE6 does pass an event object.

What information does this object include? I haven't found anything in
msdn docs about it.

Perhaps a bug? I haven't had time to test this further, but I'm pretty
sure this object was empty.

Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn · Nov 15, 2005

yb said:
What information does this object include? I haven't found anything in
msdn docs about it.

Have you even looked for it? Documentation is linked as the first hit on
<http://search.microsoft.com/search/results.aspx?qu=event&View=msdn&st=b&c=4&s=1&swc=4>

PointedEars

VK · Nov 15, 2005

Robert said:
I have the same version as you, but IE does not pass an empty event
object for me.
Reinstall IE? Or maybe there is some other js code that interferes with
the event.

It is not an empty object. It's the same "event" object you can get as
global variable.

Traditionally IE provided event info via automatically created
contextually global variable "event" and Netscape > Gesko via
automatically assigned first argument in the event handler. But
starting IE 6.0.2800 (at least) it implements both ways, so you could
access event info in IE-way or Gesko-way. Very confusing and dangerous
actually, but I guess that the intentions were to facilitate developers
life

:-(

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>Test</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
charset=iso-8859-1">

<script type="text/javascript">

function init() {
document.getElementById('ie').attachEvent('onclick',testIE);
}

function testIE(e) {
alert(e.srcElement.tagName);
alert(event.srcElement.tagName);
}

window.onload = init;
</script>

<style type="text/css">
body {background-color: #FFFFFF}
var {font: normal 10pt Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;
color: #0000FF; text-decoration: underline;
cursor: hand; cursor

ointer}
</style>

</head>

<body>

<noscript>
<p><font color="#FF0000"><b>JavaScript disabled:-</b><br>
<i><u>italized links</u></i> will not work properly</font></p>
</noscript>

<p>
<var id="ie">Test</var>
</p>

</body>
</html>

yb · Nov 15, 2005

Sorry my wording was not accurate

yes, I have looked into the docs, what I meant is I could not find
information about IE passing in an object into the event handler.

On further testing, the object seems to be same as window.event, but I
can't find anything on msdn mentioning that it passing an event object
to the function as a paramter.

Robert · Nov 16, 2005

VK said:
It is not an empty object. It's the same "event" object you can get as
global variable.

Did you respond to me or the original poster?
Because I just said that I do not have an empty object.

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strange event handling problem in IE

yb

web.dev

yb

Robert

Robert

yb

Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn

VK

yb

Robert

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