How to communicate between iframe and the parent s

Question

The website in the iframe isn't located in the same domain, but both are mine, and I would like to communicate between the iframe and the parent site. Is it possible?

Answer 1

the window.top property should be able to give what you need.

E.g.

alert(top.location.href)

See http://cross-browser.com/talk/inter-frame_comm.html

Answer 2

This library supports HTML5 postMessage and legacy browsers with resize+hash https://github.com/ternarylabs/porthole

Edit: Now in 2014, IE6/7 usage is quite low, IE8 and above all support postMessage so I now suggest to just use that.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window.postMessage

Answer 3

With different domains, it is not possible to call methods or access the iframe's content document directly.

You have to use cross-document messaging.

For example in the top window:

 myIframe.contentWindow.postMessage('hello', '*');

and in the iframe:

window.onmessage = function(e){
    if (e.data == 'hello') {
        alert('It works!');
    }
};

If you are posting message from iframe to parent window

window.top.postMessage('hello', '*')

Answer 4

It must be here, because accepted answer from 2012

In 2018 and modern browsers you can send a custom event from iframe to parent window.

iframe:

var data = { foo: 'bar' }
var event = new CustomEvent('myCustomEvent', { detail: data })
window.parent.document.dispatchEvent(event)

parent:

window.document.addEventListener('myCustomEvent', handleEvent, false)
function handleEvent(e) {
  console.log(e.detail) // outputs: {foo: 'bar'}
}

PS: Of course, you can send events in opposite direction same way.

document.querySelector('#iframe_id').contentDocument.dispatchEvent(event)