Giving the script tag an ID

The Code Pimp picture The Code Pimp · Apr 30, 2010 · Viewed 57.9k times · Source

I came across a scenario where giving a script element an id attribute would solve a problem easily. However, after reading about the script element at w3schools and quirksmode, it seems doing so could have some unforeseen consequences.

Has anyone come across any of these issues with browsers such as Chrome, Safari, FF3 up and IE 7 up?

Answer

bobince picture bobince · Apr 30, 2010

It's fine in all current browsers.

The only browser that got <script id> wrong was Netscape 4, which we stopped caring about a long, long time ago.

That quirksmode page seems to be badly out of date, what with its use of language attributes, script <!-- hiding, and application/x-javascript. Its advice about avoiding <script> in the <body> (and putting it in <head> instead) is at odds with today's encouraged practices.

If we're talking <script> attribute compatibility problems: defer doesn't work everywhere so don't rely on it; charset doesn't work everywhere, and neither does the charset parameter on the served script's Content-Type, so your script charset had better match the page; type should always be text/javascript and not one of the non-working alternatives the pedants who wrote RFC 4329 would like you to use.