Global variable in Web worker

Nigilan picture Nigilan · Jun 27, 2012 · Viewed 34.4k times · Source

I am using this Web worker which has a Global variable declared in it. Can I access the same (Global variable in worker 1) in the newly spawned web worker(worker 2)?

When I've tried using jQuery in web worker, I get error "window is not defined". Is there any way to use jQuery in a Web Worker?

importScripts('jquery-latest.js');

function fetch_ajax(url) {
  $.ajax({
    type: 'GET', 
    url: url,
    success: function(response) {
    postMessage(response);  


    }
  });
}

fetch_ajax('test.txt');

Answer

buley picture buley · Jun 28, 2012

Web Workers don't have a window object.

To access global state, use self instead, code that will work on both the main thread and the worker thread.

But note that you still won't be able to access or manipulate the parent DOM (e.g. get window.jQuery via self.jQuery).

While the main thread window self points to the Window object, in worker threads self points to a separate WorkerGlobalScope object.