IFRAME contentWindow is null

By  on  

I like clean code so I do what I can to avoid unwanted JavaScript global variables.  I initially thought that keys(window) would give me window property leaks but that didn't work because browsers returned different results, so I moved on to using an IFRAME to compare default window property keys.

When I first tried this method, I got a lame error about an IFRAME element's contentWindow property being null.  Ugh.  It didn't take long to figure out why:  you need to wait until the IFRAME has loaded to get the contentWindow:

var iframe = document.createElement('iframe');
iframe.onload = function() {
	// contentWindow is set!	
};
iframe.src = 'about:blank';
document.body.appendChild(iframe);

Of course you'll want to add the onload event before setting the src.  If you use the load event to check for the contentWindow property, you'll be in business!

Recent Features

  • By
    Vibration API

    Many of the new APIs provided to us by browser vendors are more targeted toward the mobile user than the desktop user.  One of those simple APIs the Vibration API.  The Vibration API allows developers to direct the device, using JavaScript, to vibrate in...

  • By
    Responsive Images: The Ultimate Guide

    Chances are that any Web designers using our Ghostlab browser testing app, which allows seamless testing across all devices simultaneously, will have worked with responsive design in some shape or form. And as today's websites and devices become ever more varied, a plethora of responsive images...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    CSS Vertical Centering

    Front-end developing is beautiful, and it's getting prettier by the day. Nowadays we got so many concepts, methodologies, good practices and whatnot to make our work stand out from the rest. Javascript (along with its countless third party libraries) and CSS have grown so big, helping...

  • By
    Rotate Elements with CSS Transformations

    I've gone on a million rants about the lack of progress with CSS and how I'm happy that both JavaScript and browser-specific CSS have tried to push web design forward. One of those browser-specific CSS properties we love is CSS transformations. CSS transformations...

Discussion

  1. Sisyphe

    Don’t you need to append your iframe element to a DOM tree so that the browser fetches its target content ? I mean, I know that old IE will load scripts as you parse an “HTML string” but in modern browsers, I thought that the asset does not get loaded until you append the element to a document (and in my opinion this it what makes constructors such as Image() so useful).

  2. Yes, good catch! Updated!

  3. James

    Unfortunately this does not appear to be 100% reliable in chrome (i’m currently using version 62.0.3202.94, but this appears to have been an issue for a while), as sometimes contentWindow can still be null when onload is triggered.

  4. bell.jackit

    This solution worked for me! Thanks a lot!

  5. Sharry Stowell

    Thank you, saved me hours!

    Sharry

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!