Which is the difference between srcdoc=“…” and src

Question

For example, which is the difference between these:

<iframe srcdoc="<p>Some HTML</p>"></iframe>
<iframe src="data:text/html,<p>Some HTML</p>"></iframe>

Demo

And, in case they are exactly the same, why did HTML5 add srcdoc attribute?

Edit

Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I am not comparing src with srcdoc, but src using text/html data URI with srcdoc.

Then, if the functionality chart is like this

                   |  src attribute       |  srcdoc attribute
 --------------------------------------------------------------------
  URL              |  Yes                 |  No without using src (*)
  HTML content     |  Yes, using data URI |  Yes

why is srcdoc needed?

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(*) Note:

It seems srcdoc can be used to load a page by URL (Demo), using a subiframe with srcattribute:

<iframe srcdoc="<iframe src='http://microsoft.com'></iframe>"></iframe>

Answer 1

From MDN :

^1. The content of the page that the embedded context is to contain. This attribute is expected to be used together with the sandbox and seamless attributes. If a browser supports the srcdoc attribute, it will override the content specified in the src attribute (if present). If a browser does NOT support the srcdoc attribute, it will show the file specified in the src attribute instead (if present).

So, the srcdoc attribute overrides the content embedded using src attribute.

Demo

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Also, what you are saying about the following snippet data:text/html is called Data URI and it has limitations..

^2. Data URIs cannot be larger than 32,768 characters.

^{1. MDN, 2. MSDN}

Answer 2

As of writing - srcdoc in Chrome (v36) allows the setting and fetching of cookies, whereas the use of src with data URL does not:

Uncaught SecurityError: Failed to read the 'cookie' property from 'Document': Cookies are disabled inside 'data:' URLs

This may or may not be important to you, but rules out the use of data URLs in the application I am building, which is a shame, as of course IE doesn't support srcdoc currently (v11).

Answer 3

The main difference is that the 'src' attribute contains the address of the document you are going to embed in the tag.

On the other hand 'srcdoc'attribute contains the HTML content of the page to show in the inline frame.

the main disadvantage of srcdoc is that it is not supported in all browsers whereas src is compatible with all the browsers.

for detailed explanation please go through the following link: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/iframe

Answer 4

srcdoc: The content of the page that the embedded context is to contain. This attribute is expected to be used together with the sandbox and seamless attributes. If a browser supports the srcdoc attribute, it will override the content specified in the src attribute (if present). If a browser does NOT support the srcdoc attribute, it will show the file specified in the src attribute instead (if present).

src: The URL of the page to embed.

Answer 5

Another noticeable difference is that src attributes with data-uri support URI percent-encoding rules while srcdoc doesn't as it supports regular html syntax,

these sources will yield differently:

<iframe srcdoc="<p>hello%20world</p><h1>give%0D%0Ame%0D%0Asome%24</h1>"></iframe>

<iframe src="data:text/html;charset=UTF-8,<p>hello%20datauri<p><h1>give%0D%0A me%0D%0Asome%24</h1>"></iframe>

I also noticed a difference in the parsing of js scripts inside the attributes value( it's probably more than just percentage-encoding ) but didn't figure the rule yet...

Answer 6

In your example the two forms are functionally identical. However, you can use both src and srcdoc attributes, allowing non-HTML5 browsers to use the src version, while HTML5 browsers can use the srcdoc version along with the sandbox and seamless attributes which offer more flexibility in how an iFrame is treated.