Giving the script tag an ID

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I came across a scenario where giving a script element an id attribute would solve a problem easily. However, after reading about the script element at w3schools and quirksmode, it seems doing so could have some unforeseen consequences.

Has anyone come across any of these issues with browsers such as Chrome, Safari, FF3 up and IE 7 up?

Overseas answered 29/4, 2010 at 23:40 Comment(1)

This is an old question, but it looks like Google Tag Manager strips out the 'id' attribute, so it's probably worth investing in a fallback approach (perhaps). – Paralyse 24/5, 2013 at 22:2

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It's fine in all current browsers.

The only browser that got <script id> wrong was Netscape 4, which we stopped caring about a long, long time ago.

That quirksmode page seems to be badly out of date, what with its use of language attributes, script <!-- hiding, and application/x-javascript. Its advice about avoiding <script> in the <body> (and putting it in <head> instead) is at odds with today's encouraged practices.

If we're talking <script> attribute compatibility problems: defer doesn't work everywhere so don't rely on it; charset doesn't work everywhere, and neither does the charset parameter on the served script's Content-Type, so your script charset had better match the page; type should always be text/javascript and not one of the non-working alternatives the pedants who wrote RFC 4329 would like you to use.

Antagonist answered 29/4, 2010 at 23:51 Comment(0)

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Keep in mind that setting the id on any element introduces a new global variable with the same name as the id attribute:

Bordie answered 7/2, 2017 at 22:29 Comment(2)

This is an incredibly important point! I recently added IDs automatically via a CMS and had to change it to data-id because it was overwriting global variables. – Astro 11/4, 2018 at 21:37

One way to avoid overwriting global variables would be to name IDs with dashes (-) included since variables cannot contain dashes but IDs can. – Pyrites 2/10, 2018 at 13:57

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If you're still having to support Netscape 4, you've got a lot of trouble – and the pity and condolences of the rest of the developer world.

Short answer, I wouldn't worry about it.

Nicknickel answered 29/4, 2010 at 23:52 Comment(0)

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I know a long time has passed, but I thought it would be nice to point that when you look at W3 Schools definition of the script tag, you see at some point that

The tag also supports the Global Attributes in HTML.

and amongst those attributes, ta-da, you will find your lovely id.

The same goes for a whole lot of tags, which will certainly give us a lot of flexibility when pulling those nice trick from the hat.

Dolomite answered 9/11, 2016 at 9:43 Comment(1)

Never refer w3schools as a standard reference please – Joselynjoseph 20/8, 2023 at 21:4

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I don't think a browser would have a problem by adding an id attribute to a script element.

On some of my sites, that load additional JavaScripts via JavaScript, I have added a class attribute to make referencing them easier. The validator did not complain.

Pollypollyanna answered 29/4, 2010 at 23:51 Comment(0)

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