Why does an onclick property set with setAttribute

Question

Ran into this problem today, posting in case someone else has the same issue.

var execBtn = document.createElement('input');
execBtn.setAttribute("type", "button");
execBtn.setAttribute("id", "execBtn");
execBtn.setAttribute("value", "Execute");
execBtn.setAttribute("onclick", "runCommand();");

Turns out to get IE to run an onclick on a dynamically generated element, we can't use setAttribute. Instead, we need to set the onclick property on the object with an anonymous function wrapping the code we want to run.

execBtn.onclick = function() { runCommand() };

BAD IDEAS:

You can do

execBtn.setAttribute("onclick", function() { runCommand() });

but it will break in IE in non-standards mode according to @scunliffe.

You can't do this at all

execBtn.setAttribute("onclick", runCommand() ); 

because it executes immediately, and sets the result of runCommand() to be the onClick attribute value, nor can you do

execBtn.setAttribute("onclick", runCommand);

Answer 1

I did this to get around it and move on, in my case I'm not using an 'input' element, instead I use an image, when I tried setting the "onclick" attribute for this image I experienced the same problem, so I tried wrapping the image with an "a" element and making the reference point to the function like this.

var rowIndex = 1;
var linkDeleter = document.createElement('a');
linkDeleter.setAttribute('href', "javascript:function(" + rowIndex + ");");

var imgDeleter = document.createElement('img');
imgDeleter.setAttribute('alt', "Delete");
imgDeleter.setAttribute('src', "Imagenes/DeleteHS.png");
imgDeleter.setAttribute('border', "0");

linkDeleter.appendChild(imgDeleter);

Answer 2

This is an amazing function for cross-browser compatible event binding.

Got it from http://js.isite.net.au/snippets/addevent

With it you can just do Events.addEvent(element, event, function); and be worry free!

For example: (http://jsfiddle.net/Zxeka/)

function hello() {
    alert('Hello');
}

var button = document.createElement('input');
button.value = "Hello";
button.type = "button";

Events.addEvent(input_0, "click", hello);

document.body.appendChild(button);

Here's the function:

// We create a function which is called immediately,
// returning the actual function object.  This allows us to
// work in a separate scope and only return the functions
// we require.
var Events = (function() {

  // For DOM2-compliant browsers.
  function addEventW3C(el, ev, f) {
    // Since IE only supports bubbling, for
    // compatibility we can't use capturing here.
    return el.addEventListener(ev, f, false);
  }

  function removeEventW3C(el, ev, f) {
    el.removeEventListener(ev, f, false);
  }

  // The function as required by IE.
  function addEventIE(el, ev, f) {
    // This is to work around a bug in IE whereby the
    // current element doesn't get passed as context.
    // We pass it via closure instead and set it as the
    // context using call().
    // This needs to be stored for removeEvent().
    // We also store the original wrapped function as a
    // property, _w.
    ((el._evts = el._evts || [])[el._evts.length]
        = function(e) { return f.call(el, e); })._w = f;

    // We prepend "on" to the event name.
    return el.attachEvent("on" + ev,
        el._evts[el._evts.length - 1]);
  }

  function removeEventIE(el, ev, f) {
    for (var evts = el._evts || [], i = evts.length; i--; )
      if (evts[i]._w === f)
        el.detachEvent("on" + ev, evts.splice(i, 1)[0]);
  }

  // A handler to call all events we've registered
  // on an element for legacy browsers.
  function addEventLegacyHandler(e) {
    var evts = this._evts[e.type];
    for (var i = 0; i < evts.length; ++i)
      if (!evts[i].call(this, e || event))
        return false;
  }

  // For older browsers.  We basically reimplement
  // attachEvent().
  function addEventLegacy(el, ev, f) {
    if (!el._evts)
      el._evts = {};

    if (!el._evts[ev])
      el._evts[ev] = [];

    el._evts[ev].push(f);

    return true;
  }

  function removeEventLegacy(el, ev, f) {
    // Loop through the handlers for this event type
    // and remove them if they match f.
    for (var evts = el._evts[ev] || [], i = evts.length; i--; )
      if (evts[i] === f)
        evts.splice(i, 1);
  }

  // Select the appropriate functions based on what's
  // available on the window object and return them.
  return window.addEventListener
      ? {addEvent: addEventW3C, removeEvent: removeEventW3C}
      : window.attachEvent
          ? {addEvent: addEventIE, removeEvent: removeEventIE}
          : {addEvent: addEventLegacy, removeEvent: removeEventLegacy};
})();

If you don't want to use such a big function, this should work for almost all browsers, including IE:

if (el.addEventListener) { 
    el.addEventListener('click', function, false); 
} else if (el.attachEvent) { 
    el.attachEvent('onclick', function); 
} 

In response to Craig's question. You're going to have to make a new element and copy over the attributes of the old element. This function should do the job: (source)

function changeInputType(oldObject, oType) {
  var newObject = document.createElement('input');
  newObject.type = oType;
  if(oldObject.size) newObject.size = oldObject.size;
  if(oldObject.value) newObject.value = oldObject.value;
  if(oldObject.name) newObject.name = oldObject.name;
  if(oldObject.id) newObject.id = oldObject.id;
  if(oldObject.className) newObject.className = oldObject.className;
  oldObject.parentNode.replaceChild(newObject,oldObject);
  return newObject;
}

Answer 3

Try this execBtn.onclick =function() { eval('runCommand()') };

For me it works.

Answer 4

Or you could use jQuery and avoid all those issues:

var execBtn = $("<input>", {
       type: "button",
       id: "execBtn",
       value: "Execute"
    })
    .click(runCommand);        

jQuery will take care of all the cross-browser issues as well.

Answer 5

function CheckBrowser(){
    if(navigator.userAgent.match(/Android/i)!=null||
        navigator.userAgent.match(/BlackBerry/i)!=null||
        navigator.userAgent.match(/iPhone|iPad|iPod/i)!=null||
        navigator.userAgent.match(/Nokia/i)!=null||
        navigator.userAgent.match(/Opera M/i)!=null||
        navigator.userAgent.match(/Chrome/i)!=null)
        {
            return 'OTHER';
    }else{
            return 'IE';
    }
}


function AddButt(i){
    var new_butt = document.createElement('input');
    new_butt.setAttribute('type','button');
    new_butt.setAttribute('value','Delete Item');
    new_butt.setAttribute('id', 'answer_del_'+i);
    if(CheckBrowser()=='IE'){
        new_butt.setAttribute("onclick", function() { DelElemAnswer(i) });
    }else{
        new_butt.setAttribute('onclick','javascript:DelElemAnswer('+i+');');
    }
}

Answer 6

Did you try:

    execBtn.setAttribute("onclick", function() { runCommand() });