What's the difference between cancelBubble and stopPropagation?

ahamed picture ahamed · Sep 29, 2011 · Viewed 43.2k times · Source

Can anyone please tell me difference in usage of cancelBubble and stopPropagation methods used in javascript.

Answer

Tim Down picture Tim Down · Sep 29, 2011

cancelBubble is an IE-only Boolean property (not method) that serves the same purpose as the stopPropagation() method of other browsers, which is to prevent the event from moving to its next target (known as "bubbling" when the event is travelling from inner to outer elements, which is the only way an event travels in IE < 9). IE 9 now supports stopPropagation() so cancelBubble will eventually become obsolete. In the meantime, the following is a cross-browser function to stop an event propagating:

function stopPropagation(evt) {
    if (typeof evt.stopPropagation == "function") {
        evt.stopPropagation();
    } else {
        evt.cancelBubble = true;
    }
}

In an event handler function, you could use it as follows:

document.getElementById("foo").onclick = function(evt) {
    evt = evt || window.event; // For IE
    stopPropagation(evt);
};