HTML5

6.1.2 Enabling and disabling scripting

Scripting is enabled in a browsing context when all of the following conditions are true:

• The user agent supports scripting.
• The user has not disabled scripting for this browsing context at this time. (User agents may provide users with the option to disable scripting globally, or in a finer-grained manner, e.g. on a per-origin basis.)
• The browsing context's active document's active sandboxing flag set does not have its sandboxed scripts browsing context flag set.

Scripting is disabled in a browsing context when any of the above conditions are false (i.e. when scripting is not enabled).

Scripting is enabled for a node if the Document object of the node (the node itself, if it is itself a Document object) has an associated browsing context, and scripting is enabled in that browsing context.

Scripting is disabled for a node if there is no such browsing context, or if scripting is disabled in that browsing context.

6.1.3 Processing model

6.1.3.1 Definitions

This specification describes three kinds of JavaScript global environments: the document environment, the dedicated worker environment, and the shared worker environment. The dedicated worker environment and the shared worker environment are both types of worker environments.

Except where otherwise specified, a JavaScript global environment is a document environment.

A script has:

A script execution environment

The characteristics of the script execution environment depend on the language, and are not defined by this specification.

In JavaScript, the script execution environment consists of the interpreter, the stack of execution contexts, the global code and function code and the Function objects resulting, and so forth.

A list of code entry-points

Each code entry-point represents a block of executable code that the script exposes to other scripts and to the user agent.

Each Function object in a JavaScript script execution environment has a corresponding code entry-point, for instance.

The main program code of the script, if any, is the initial code entry-point. Typically, the code corresponding to this entry-point is executed immediately after the script is parsed.

In JavaScript, this corresponds to the execution context of the global code.

A relationship with the script's global object

An object that provides the APIs that the code can use.

This is typically a Window object. In JavaScript, this corresponds to the global object.

When a script's global object is an empty object, it can't do anything that interacts with the environment.

If the script's global object is a Window object, then in JavaScript, the ThisBinding of the global execution context for this script must be the Window object's WindowProxy object, rather than the global object. [ECMA262]

This is a willful violation of the JavaScript specification current at the time of writing (ECMAScript edition 5, as defined in section 10.4.1.1 Initial Global Execution Context, step 3). The JavaScript specification requires that the this keyword in the global scope return the global object, but this is not compatible with the security design prevalent in implementations as specified herein. [ECMA262]

A relationship with the script's browsing context

A browsing context that is assigned responsibility for actions taken by the script.

When a script creates and navigates a new top-level browsing context, the opener attribute of the new browsing context's Window object will be set to the script's browsing context's WindowProxy object.

A relationship with the script's document

A Document that is assigned responsibility for actions taken by the script.

For example, the address of the script's document is used to set the address of any Document elements created using createDocument().

The script's referrer source

Either a Document (specifically, the script's document), or a URL, which is used by some APIs to determine what value to use for the Referer (sic) header in calls to the fetching algorithm.

A URL character encoding

A character encoding, set when the script is created, used to encode URLs. If the character encoding is set from another source, e.g. a document's character encoding, then the script's URL character encoding must follow the source, so that if the source's changes, so does the script's.

A base URL

A URL, set when the script is created, used to resolve relative URLs. If the base URL is set from another source, e.g. a document base URL, then the script's base URL must follow the source, so that if the source's changes, so does the script's.

6.1.3.2 Calling scripts

When a user agent is to jump to a code entry-point for a script, for example to invoke an event listener defined in that script, the user agent must run the following steps:

1. If the script's global object is a Window object whose Document object is not fully active, then abort these steps without doing anything. The callback is not run.

2. Set the entry script to be the script being invoked.

3. Let previous script clean-up jobs list have the value of the current global script clean-up jobs list.

4. Empty the global script clean-up jobs list.

5. Make the script execution environment for the script execute the code for the given code entry-point.

6. Set the entry script back to whatever it was when this algorithm started.

7. Run the global script clean-up jobs.

8. Set the global script clean-up jobs list to the value of previous script clean-up jobs list.

9. Perform a microtask checkpoint. (If this runs scripts, it will result in this algorithm being invoked reentrantly.)

This algorithm is not invoked by one script directly calling another, but it can be invoked reentrantly in an indirect manner, e.g. if a script dispatches an event which has event listeners registered.

Each unit of related similar-origin browsing contexts can have an entry script which is used to obtain, amongst other things, the script's base URL to resolve relative URLs used in scripts running in that unit of related similar-origin browsing contexts. Initially, there is no entry script. It is changed by the jump to a code entry-point algorithm above.

Each unit of related similar-origin browsing contexts has a running mutation observers flag, which must initially be false. It is used to prevent reentrant invocation of the algorithm to invoke MutationObserver objects. For the purposes of MutationObserver objects, each unit of related similar-origin browsing contexts is a distinct scripting environment.

Each unit of related similar-origin browsing contexts has a global script clean-up jobs list, which must initially be empty. The File API uses this to release blob: URLs. [FILEAPI]

When the user agent is to run the global script clean-up jobs, the user agent must perform each of the jobs in the global script clean-up jobs list and then empty the list.

6.1.3.3 Creating scripts

When the specification says that a script is to be created, given some script source, a script source URL, its scripting language, a global object, a browsing context, a document, a referrer source, a URL character encoding, and a base URL, the user agent must run the following steps:

1. If scripting is disabled for browsing context passed to this algorithm, then abort these steps, as if the script did nothing but return void.

2. Set up a script execution environment as appropriate for the scripting language.

3. Parse/compile/initialize the source of the script using the script execution environment, as appropriate for the scripting language, and thus obtain the list of code entry-points for the script. If the semantics of the scripting language and the given source code are such that there is executable code to be immediately run, then the initial code entry-point is the entry-point for that code.

4. Set up the script's global object, the script's browsing context, the script's document, the script's referrer source, the script's URL character encoding, and the script's base URL from the settings passed to this algorithm.

5. If all the steps above succeeded (in particular, if the script was compiled successfully), Jump to the script's initial code entry-point.

   Otherwise, report the error at the script source URL, with the problematic position (line number and column number), in the script's origin, using the onerror event handler of the script's global object. If the error is still not handled after this, then the error may be reported to the user.

When the user agent is to create an impotent script, given some script source and URL, its scripting language, and a browsing context, the user agent must create a script, using the given script source, URL, and scripting language, using a new empty object as the global object, and using the given browsing context as the browsing context. The referrer source, URL character encoding, and base URL for the resulting script are not important as no APIs are exposed to the script.

When the specification says that a script is to be created from a node node, given some script source, its URL, and its scripting language, the user agent must create a script, using the given script source, URL, and scripting language, and using the script settings determined from the node node.

The script settings determined from the node node are computed as follows:

1. Let document be the Document of node (or node itself if it is a Document).

2. The global object is the Window object of document.

3. The browsing context is the browsing context of document.

4. The document is document.

5. The referrer source is document.

6. The URL character encoding is the character encoding of document. (This is a reference, not a copy.)

7. The base URL is the base URL of document. (This is a reference, not a copy.)

6.1.3.4 Killing scripts

User agents may impose resource limitations on scripts, for example CPU quotas, memory limits, total execution time limits, or bandwidth limitations. When a script exceeds a limit, the user agent may either throw a QuotaExceededError exception, abort the script without an exception, prompt the user, or throttle script execution.

<script>
 while (true) { /* loop */ }
</script>

User agents are encouraged to allow users to disable scripting whenever the user is prompted either by a script (e.g. using the window.alert() API) or because of a script's actions (e.g. because it has exceeded a time limit).

If scripting is disabled while a script is executing, the script should be terminated immediately.

User agents may allow users to specifically disable scripts just for the purposes of closing a browsing context.

For example, the prompt mentioned in the example above could also offer the user with a mechanism to just close the page entirely, without running any unload event handlers.

6.1.3.5 Runtime script errors

When the user agent is required to report an error at a particular URL location with a particular position line:col in a particular origin origin, using the event handler onerror, it must run these steps, after which the error is either handled or not handled:

If the value of onerror is an OnErrorEventHandler

1. Let message be a user-agent-defined string describing the error in a helpful manner.

2. If the location URL does not have a same origin as the origin, then set message to "Script error.", set location to the empty string, and set line and col to 0.

3. The callback must be invoked with four arguments: message, location, line, and col.

   If the callback returns true, then the error is handled. Otherwise, the error is not handled.

   Any uncaught exceptions thrown or errors caused by this function may be reported to the user immediately after the error that the function was called for; the report an error algorithm must not be used to handle exceptions thrown or errors caused by this function.

Otherwise

The error is not handled.

6.1.3.5.1 Runtime script errors in documents

Whenever an uncaught runtime script error occurs in one of the scripts associated with a Document, the user agent must report the error at the URL of the resource containing the script (as established when the script was created), with the problematic position (line number and column number) in that resource, in the script's origin, using the onerror event handler of the script's global object. If the error is still not handled after this, then the error may be reported to the user.

The resource containing the script will typically be the file from which the Document was parsed, e.g. for inline script elements or event handler content attributes; or the JavaScript file that the script was in, for external scripts. Even for dynamically-generated scripts, user agents are strongly encouraged to attempt to keep track of the original source of a script. For example, if an external script uses the document.write() API to insert an inline script element during parsing, the URL of the resource containing the script would ideally be reported as being the external script, and the line number might ideally be reported as the line with the document.write() call or where the string passed to that call was first constructed. Naturally, implementing this can be somewhat non-trivial.

User agents are similarly encouraged to keep careful track of the original line numbers, even in the face of document.write() calls mutating the document as it is parsed, or event handler content attributes spanning multiple lines.

6.1.4 Event loops

6.1.4.1 Definitions

To coordinate events, user interaction, scripts, rendering, networking, and so forth, user agents must use event loops as described in this section.

There must be at least one event loop per user agent, and at most one event loop per unit of related similar-origin browsing contexts.

When there is more than one event loop for a unit of related browsing contexts, complications arise when a browsing context in that group is navigated such that it switches from one unit of related similar-origin browsing contexts to another. This specification does not currently describe how to handle these complications.

An event loop always has at least one browsing context. If an event loop's browsing contexts all go away, then the event loop goes away as well. A browsing context always has an event loop coordinating its activities.

Other specifications can define new kinds of event loops that aren't associated with browsing contexts; in particular, the Web Workers specification does so.

An event loop has one or more task queues. A task queue is an ordered list of tasks, which can be:

Events

Asynchronously dispatching an Event object at a particular EventTarget object is a task.

Not all events are dispatched using the task queue, many are dispatched synchronously during other tasks.

Parsing

The HTML parser tokenizing one or more bytes, and then processing any resulting tokens, is typically a task.

Callbacks

Calling a callback asynchronously is a task.

Using a resource

When an algorithm fetches a resource, if the fetching occurs asynchronously then the processing of the resource once some or all of the resource is available is a task.

Reacting to DOM manipulation

Some elements have tasks that trigger in response to DOM manipulation, e.g. when that element is inserted into the document.

When a user agent is to queue a task, it must add the given task to one of the task queues of the relevant event loop. All the tasks from one particular task source (e.g. the callbacks generated by timers, the events fired for mouse movements, the tasks queued for the parser) must always be added to the same task queue, but tasks from different task sources may be placed in different task queues.

For example, a user agent could have one task queue for mouse and key events (the user interaction task source), and another for everything else. The user agent could then give keyboard and mouse events preference over other tasks three quarters of the time, keeping the interface responsive but not starving other task queues, and never processing events from any one task source out of order.

Each task that is queued onto a task queue of an event loop defined by this specification is associated with a Document; if the task was queued in the context of an element, then it is the element's Document; if the task was queued in the context of a browsing context, then it is the browsing context's active document at the time the task was queued; if the task was queued by or for a script then the document is the script's document.

A user agent may have one storage mutex. This mutex is used to control access to shared state like cookies. At any one point, the storage mutex is either free, or owned by a particular event loop or instance of the fetching algorithm.

If a user agent does not implement a storage mutex, it is exempt from implementing the requirements that require it to acquire or release it.

User agent implementors have to make a choice between two evils. On the one hand, not implementing the storage mutex means that there is a risk of data corruption: a site could, for instance, try to read a cookie, increment its value, then write it back out, using the new value of the cookie as a unique identifier for the session; if the site does this twice in two different browser windows at the same time, it might end up using the same "unique" identifier for both sessions, with potentially disastrous effects. On the other hand, implementing the storage mutex has potentially serious performance implications: whenever a site uses Web Storage or cookies, all other sites that try to use Web Storage or cookies are blocked until the first site finishes.

Whenever a script calls into a plugin, and whenever a plugin calls into a script, the user agent must release the storage mutex.

6.1.4.2 Processing model

An event loop must continually run through the following steps for as long as it exists:

1. Run the oldest task on one of the event loop's task queues, ignoring tasks whose associated Documents are not fully active. The user agent may pick any task queue.

2. If the storage mutex is now owned by the event loop, release it so that it is once again free.

3. Remove that task from its task queue.

4. Perform a microtask checkpoint.

5. Provide a stable state.

6. If necessary, update the rendering or user interface of any Document or browsing context to reflect the current state.

7. Return to the first step of the event loop.

When a user agent is to perform a microtask checkpoint, if the running mutation observers flag is false, then the user agent must run the following steps:

1. Let the running mutation observers flag be true.

2. Invoke MutationObserver objects for the unit of related similar-origin browsing contexts to which the script's browsing context belongs.

   This will typically fire scripted callbacks, which calls the jump to a code entry-point algorithm, which calls this perform a microtask checkpoint algorithm again, which is why we use the running mutation observers flag to avoid reentrancy.

3. Let the running mutation observers flag be false.

When the user agent is to provide a stable state, if any asynchronously-running algorithms are awaiting a stable state, then the user agent must run their synchronous section and then resume running their asynchronous algorithm (if appropriate).

A synchronous section never mutates the DOM, runs any script, or has any other side-effects.

Steps in synchronous sections are marked with ⌛.

When an algorithm says to spin the event loop until a condition goal is met, the user agent must run the following steps:

1. Let task source be the task source of the currently running task.

2. Stop the currently running task, allowing the event loop to resume, but continue these steps asynchronously.

   This causes the event loop to move on to the second step of its processing model (defined above).

3. Wait until the condition goal is met.

4. Queue a task to continue running these steps, using the task source task source. Wait until this task runs before continuing these steps.

5. Return to the caller.

Some of the algorithms in this specification, for historical reasons, require the user agent to pause while running a task until a condition goal is met. This means running the following steps:

1. If any asynchronously-running algorithms are awaiting a stable state, then run their synchronous section and then resume running their asynchronous algorithm. (See the event loop processing model definition above for details.)

2. If necessary, update the rendering or user interface of any Document or browsing context to reflect the current state.

3. Wait until the condition goal is met. While a user agent has a paused task, the corresponding event loop must not run further tasks, and any script in the currently running task must block. User agents should remain responsive to user input while paused, however, albeit in a reduced capacity since the event loop will not be doing anything.

When a user agent is to obtain the storage mutex as part of running a task, it must run through the following steps:

1. If the storage mutex is already owned by this task's event loop, then abort these steps.

2. Otherwise, pause until the storage mutex can be taken by the event loop.

3. Take ownership of the storage mutex.

6.1.4.3 Generic task sources

The following task sources are used by a number of mostly unrelated features in this and other specifications.

The DOM manipulation task source

This task source is used for features that react to DOM manipulations, such as things that happen asynchronously when an element is inserted into the document.

The user interaction task source

This task source is used for features that react to user interaction, for example keyboard or mouse input.

Asynchronous events sent in response to user input (e.g. click events) must be fired using tasks queued with the user interaction task source. [DOMEVENTS]

The networking task source

This task source is used for features that trigger in response to network activity.

The history traversal task source

This task source is used to queue calls to history.back() and similar APIs.

6.1.5 The javascript: URL scheme

When a URL using the javascript: scheme is dereferenced, the user agent must run the following steps:

1. Let the script source be the string obtained using the content retrieval operation defined for javascript: URLs. [JSURL]

2. Use the appropriate step from the following list:

   If a browsing context is being navigated to a javascript: URL, and the source browsing context for that navigation, if any, has scripting disabled

   Let result be void.

   If a browsing context is being navigated to a javascript: URL, and the active document of that browsing context has the same origin as the script given by that URL

   Let address be the address of the active document of the browsing context being navigated.

   If address is about:blank, and the browsing context being navigated has a creator browsing context, then let address be the address of the creator Document instead.

   Create a script from the Document node of the active document, using the aforementioned script source, the URL of the resource where the javascript: URL, was found, and assuming the scripting language is JavaScript.

   Let result be the return value of the initial code entry-point of this script. If an exception was thrown, let result be void instead. (The result will be void also if scripting is disabled.)

   When it comes time to set the document's address in the navigation algorithm, use address as the override URL.

   Otherwise

   Let result be void.

3. If the result of executing the script is void (there is no return value), then the URL must be treated in a manner equivalent to an HTTP resource with an HTTP 204 No Content response.

   Otherwise, the URL must be treated in a manner equivalent to an HTTP resource with a 200 OK response whose Content-Type metadata is text/html and whose response body is the return value converted to a string value.

   Certain contexts, in particular img elements, ignore the Content-Type metadata.

6.1.6.1 Event handlers

Event handler IDL attributes, on setting, must set the corresponding event handler to their new value, and on getting, must return whatever the current value of the corresponding event handler is (possibly null).

If an event handler IDL attribute exposes an event handler of an object that doesn't exist, it must always return null on getting and must do nothing on setting.

This can happen in particular for event handler IDL attribute on body elements that do not have corresponding Window objects.

Certain event handler IDL attributes have additional requirements, in particular the onmessage attribute of MessagePort objects.

On getting, event handler IDL attributes must return the value of their corresponding event handlers, except when the value is an internal error value, in which case the user agent must set the corresponding event handler to null, and then throw an exception corresponding to the error condition.

When an event handler content attribute is set, if the element is owned by a Document that is in a browsing context, and scripting is enabled for that browsing context, the user agent must run the following steps to create a script after setting the content attribute to its new value:

1. Set the corresponding event handler to null.

2. Set up a script execution environment for JavaScript.

3. Let body be the event handler content attribute's new value.

4. If body is not parsable as FunctionBody or if parsing detects an early error then set the event handler content attribute to an error as defined below, and abort these steps.

   FunctionBody is defined in ECMAScript edition 5 section 13 Function Definition. Early error is defined in ECMAScript edition 5 section 16 Errors. [ECMA262]

5. If body begins with a Directive Prologue that contains a Use Strict Directive then let strict be true, otherwise let strict be false.

   The terms "Directive Prologue" and "Use Strict Directive" are defined in ECMAScript edition 5 section 14.1 Directive Prologues and the Use Strict Directive. [ECMA262]

6. Using the script execution environment created above, create a function object (as defined in ECMAScript edition 5 section 13.2 Creating Function Objects), with:

   Parameter list FormalParameterList

   If the attribute is the onerror attribute of the Window object

   Let the function have four arguments, named event, source, lineno, and column.

   Otherwise

   Let the function have a single argument called event.

   Function body FunctionBody

   The result of parsing body above.

   Lexical Environment Scope

   1. Let Scope be the result of NewObjectEnvironment(the element's Document, the global environment).
   2. If the element has a form owner, let Scope be the result of NewObjectEnvironment(the element's form owner, Scope).
   3. Let Scope be the result of NewObjectEnvironment(the element's object, Scope).

   NewObjectEnvironment() is defined in ECMAScript edition 5 section 10.2.2.3 NewObjectEnvironment (O, E). [ECMA262]

   Boolean flag Strict

   The value of strict.

   Let this new function be the only entry in the script's list of code entry-points.

7. Set up the script's global object, the script's browsing context, the script's document, the script's referrer source, the script's URL character encoding, and the script's base URL from the script settings determined from the node on which the attribute is being set.

8. Set the corresponding event handler to the aforementioned function.

When a user agent is required, by the steps above, to set the event handler content attribute to an error, the user agent must set the corresponding event handler to an internal error value representing the error condition, keeping track of the URL of the resource where the event handler content attribute was set, and the relevant line number inside that resource where the error occurred.

When an event handler content attribute is removed, the user agent must set the corresponding event handler to null.

When an event handler H of an element or object T implementing the EventTarget interface is first set to a non-null value, the user agent must append an event listener to the list of event listeners associated with T with type set to the event handler event type corresponding to H, capture set to false, and listener set to the event handler processing algorithm defined below. [DOMCORE]

The listener is emphatically not the event handler itself. Every event handler ends up registering the same listener, the algorithm defined below, which takes care of invoking the right callback, and processing the callback's return value.

This only happens the first time the event handler's value is set. Since listeners are called in the order they were registered, the order of event listeners for a particular event type will always be first the event listeners registered with addEventListener() before the first time the event handler was set to a non-null value, then the callback to which it is currently set, if any, and finally the event listeners registered with addEventListener() after the first time the event handler was set to a non-null value.

The interfaces implemented by the event object do not influence whether an event handler is triggered or not.

The event handler processing algorithm for an event handler H and an Event object E is as follows:

1. If H's value is null, then abort these steps.

2. If H's value is an internal error value, then set the event handler to null and then report the error at the appropriate URL and with the appropriate position (line number and column number), as established when the error was detected, in the origin of the Document of the node of the event handler content attribute, using the onerror event handler of the Window object of that Document, and abort these steps.

3. Let callback be H's value, the callback that the event handler was last set to.

4. Invoke callback with one argument, the value of which is the Event object E, with the callback this value set to E's currentTarget. Let the return value be return value. [WEBIDL]

5. Process return value as follows:

   If the event type is mouseover

   If return value is a boolean with the value true, then cancel the event.

   If the Event object E is a BeforeUnloadEvent object

   If return value is a string, and the Event object E's returnValue attribute's value is the empty string, then set the returnValue attribute's value to return value.

   Otherwise

   If return value is a boolean with the value false, then cancel the event.

6.1.6.3 Event firing

Certain operations and methods are defined as firing events on elements. For example, the click() method on the HTMLElement interface is defined as firing a click event on the element. [DOMEVENTS]

Firing a simple event named e means that a trusted event with the name e, which does not bubble (except where otherwise stated) and is not cancelable (except where otherwise stated), and which uses the Event interface, must be created and dispatched at the given target.

Firing a synthetic mouse event named e means that an event with the name e, which is trusted (except where otherwise stated), does not bubble (except where otherwise stated), is not cancelable (except where otherwise stated), and which uses the MouseEvent interface, must be created and dispatched at the given target. The event object must have its screenX, screenY, clientX, clientY, and button attributes initialized to 0, its ctrlKey, shiftKey, altKey, and metaKey attributes initialized according to the current state of the key input device, if any (false for any keys that are not available), its detail attribute initialized to 1, and its relatedTarget attribute initialized to null. The getModifierState() method on the object must return values appropriately describing the state of the key input device at the time the event is created.

Firing a click event means firing a synthetic mouse event named click, which bubbles and is cancelable.

The default action of these events is to do nothing except where otherwise stated.

6.1.6.4 Events and the Window object

When an event is dispatched at a DOM node in a Document in a browsing context, if the event is not a load event, the user agent must act as if, for the purposes of event dispatching, the Window object is the parent of the Document object. [DOMCORE]

The WindowBase64 interface adds to the Window interface and the WorkerUtils interface (part of Web Workers).

The btoa() method must throw an InvalidCharacterError exception if the method's first argument contains any character whose code point is greater than U+00FF. Otherwise, the user agent must convert that argument to a sequence of octets whose nth octet is the eight-bit representation of the code point of the nth character of the argument, and then must apply the base64 algorithm to that sequence of octets, and return the result. [RFC4648]

The atob() method must run the following steps to parse the string passed in the method's first argument:

1. Let input be the string being parsed.

2. Let position be a pointer into input, initially pointing at the start of the string.

3. Remove all space characters from input.

4. If the length of input divides by 4 leaving no remainder, then: if input ends with one or two "=" (U+003D) characters, remove them from input.

5. If the length of input divides by 4 leaving a remainder of 1, throw an InvalidCharacterError exception and abort these steps.

6. If input contains a character that is not in the following list of characters and character ranges, throw an InvalidCharacterError exception and abort these steps:

   • "+" (U+002B)
   • "/" (U+002F)
   • ASCII digits
   • uppercase ASCII letters
   • lowercase ASCII letters

7. Let output be a string, initially empty.

8. Let buffer be a buffer that can have bits appended to it, initially empty.

9. While position does not point past the end of input, run these substeps:

   1. Find the character pointed to by position in the first column of the following table. Let n be the number given in the second cell of the same row.

      Character	Number
      A	0
      B	1
      C	2
      D	3
      E	4
      F	5
      G	6
      H	7
      I	8
      J	9
      K	10
      L	11
      M	12
      N	13
      O	14
      P	15
      Q	16
      R	17
      S	18
      T	19
      U	20
      V	21
      W	22
      X	23
      Y	24
      Z	25
      a	26
      b	27
      c	28
      d	29
      e	30
      f	31
      g	32
      h	33
      i	34
      j	35
      k	36
      l	37
      m	38
      n	39
      o	40
      p	41
      q	42
      r	43
      s	44
      t	45
      u	46
      v	47
      w	48
      x	49
      y	50
      z	51
      0	52
      1	53
      2	54
      3	55
      4	56
      5	57
      6	58
      7	59
      8	60
      9	61
      +	62
      /	63

   2. Append to buffer the six bits corresponding to number, most significant bit first.

   3. If buffer has accumulated 24 bits, interpret them as three 8-bit big-endian numbers. Append the three characters with code points equal to those numbers to output, in the same order, and then empty buffer.

   4. Advance position by one character.

10. If buffer is not empty, it contains either 12 or 18 bits. If it contains 12 bits, discard the last four and interpret the remaining eight as an 8-bit big-endian number. If it contains 18 bits, discard the last two and interpret the remaining 16 as two 8-bit big-endian numbers. Append the one or two characters with code points equal to those one or two numbers to output, in the same order.

    The discarded bits mean that, for instance, atob("YQ") and atob("YR") both return "a".

11. Return output.

The WindowTimers interface adds to the Window interface and the WorkerUtils interface (part of Web Workers). [WEBWORKERS]

Each object that implements the WindowTimers interface has a list of active timers. Each entry in this lists is identified by a number, which must be unique within the list for the lifetime of the object that implements the WindowTimers interface.

The setTimeout() method must run the following steps:

1. Let handle be a user-agent-defined integer that is greater than zero that will identify the timeout to be set by this call in the list of active timers.

2. Add an entry to the list of active timers for handle.

3. Get the timed task handle in the list of active timers, and let task be the result. This algorithm uses the first argument to the method (handler) and, if there are any, the third and subsequent arguments to the method (arguments), to establish precisely what task does.

4. Let timeout be the second argument to the method, or zero if the argument was omitted.

5. If the currently running task is a task that was created by the setTimeout() method, and timeout is less than 4, then increase timeout to 4.

6. Return handle, and then continue running this algorithm asynchronously.

7. If the method context is a Window object, wait until the Document associated with the method context has been fully active for a further timeout milliseconds (not necessarily consecutively).

   Otherwise, if the method context is a WorkerUtils object, wait until timeout milliseconds have passed with the worker not suspended (not necessarily consecutively).

   Otherwise, act as described in the specification that defines that the WindowTimers interface is implemented by some other object.

8. Wait until any invocations of this algorithm that had the same method context, that started before this one, and whose timeout is equal to or less than this one's, have completed.

   Argument conversion as defined by Web IDL (for example, invoking toString() methods on objects passed as the first argument) happens in the algorithms defined in Web IDL, before this algorithm is invoked.

   So for example, the following rather silly code will result in the log containing "ONE TWO ":

   var log = '';
   function logger(s) { log += s + ' '; }
   
   setTimeout({ toString: function () {
     setTimeout("logger('ONE')", 100);
     return "logger('TWO')";
   } }, 100);

9. Optionally, wait a further user-agent defined length of time.

   This is intended to allow user agents to pad timeouts as needed to optimise the power usage of the device. For example, some processors have a low-power mode where the granularity of timers is reduced; on such platforms, user agents can slow timers down to fit this schedule instead of requiring the processor to use the more accurate mode with its associated higher power usage.

10. Queue the task task.

    Once the task has been processed, it is safe to remove the entry for handle from the list of active timers (there is no way for the entry's existence to be detected past this point, so it does not technically matter one way or the other).

The setInterval() method must run the following steps:

1. Let handle be a user-agent-defined integer that is greater than zero that will identify the timeout to be set by this call in the list of active timers.

2. Add an entry to the list of active timers for handle.

3. Get the timed task handle in the list of active timers, and let task be the result. This algorithm uses the first argument to the method (handler) and, if there are any, the third and subsequent arguments to the method (arguments), to establish precisely what task does.

4. Let timeout be the second argument to the method, or zero if the argument was omitted.

5. If timeout is less than 4, then increase timeout to 4.

6. Return handle, and then continue running this algorithm asynchronously.

7. Wait: If the method context is a Window object, wait until the Document associated with the method context has been fully active for a further interval milliseconds (not necessarily consecutively).

   Otherwise, if the method context is a WorkerUtils object, wait until interval milliseconds have passed with the worker not suspended (not necessarily consecutively).

   Otherwise, act as described in the specification that defines that the WindowTimers interface is implemented by some other object.

8. Optionally, wait a further user-agent defined length of time.

   This is intended to allow user agents to pad timeouts as needed to optimise the power usage of the device. For example, some processors have a low-power mode where the granularity of timers is reduced; on such platforms, user agents can slow timers down to fit this schedule instead of requiring the processor to use the more accurate mode with its associated higher power usage.

9. Queue the task task.

10. Return to the step labeled wait.

The clearTimeout() and clearInterval() methods must clear the entry identified as handle from the list of active timers of the WindowTimers object on which the method was invoked, where handle is the argument passed to the method, if any. (If handle does not identify an entry in the list of active timers of the WindowTimers object on which the method was invoked, the method does nothing.)

The method context, when referenced by the algorithms in this section, is the object on which the method for which the algorithm is running is implemented (a Window or WorkerUtils object).

When the above methods are invoked and try to get the timed task handle in list list, they must run the following steps:

1. If the first argument to the invoked method is a Function, then return a task that runs the following substeps, and then abort these steps:

   1. If the entry for handle in list has been cleared, then abort this task's substeps.

   2. Call the Function. Use the third and subsequent arguments to the invoked method (if any) as the arguments for invoking the Function. Use the undefined value as the thisArg for invoking the Function. [ECMA262]

      Setting thisArg to undefined means that the function code will be executed with the this keyword bound to the WindowProxy or the WorkerGlobalScope object, as if the code was running in the global scope.

   Otherwise, continue with the remaining steps.

2. Let script source be the first argument to the method.

3. Let script language be JavaScript.

4. If the method context is a Window object, let global object be the method context, let browsing context be the browsing context with which global object is associated, let document and referrer source be the Document associated with global object, let character encoding be the character encoding of the Document associated with global object (this is a reference, not a copy), and let base URL be the base URL of the Document associated with global object (this is a reference, not a copy).

   Otherwise, if the method context is a WorkerUtils object, let global object, browsing context, document, referrer source, character encoding, and base URL be the script's global object, script's browsing context, script's document, script's referrer source, script's URL character encoding, and script's base URL (respectively) of the script that the run a worker algorithm created when it created the method context.

   Otherwise, act as described in the specification that defines that the WindowTimers interface is implemented by some other object.

5. Return a task that checks if the entry for handle in list has been cleared, and if it has not, creates a script using script source as the script source, the URL where script source can be found, scripting language as the scripting language, global object as the global object, browsing context as the browsing context, document as the document, referrer source as the referrer source, character encoding as the URL character encoding, and base URL as the base URL.

The task source for these tasks is the timer task source.

The alert(message) method, when invoked, must run the following steps:

1. If the event loop's termination nesting level is non-zero, optionally abort these steps.

2. Release the storage mutex.

3. Optionally, abort these steps. (For example, the user agent might give the user the option to ignore all alerts, and would thus abort at this step whenever the method was invoked.)

4. Show the given message to the user.

5. Optionally, pause while waiting for for the user to acknowledge the message.

The confirm(message) method, when invoked, must run the following steps:

1. If the event loop's termination nesting level is non-zero, optionally abort these steps, returning false.

2. Release the storage mutex.

3. Optionally, return false and abort these steps. (For example, the user agent might give the user the option to ignore all prompts, and would thus abort at this step whenever the method was invoked.)

4. Show the given message to the user, and ask the user to respond with a positive or negative response.

5. Pause until the user responds either positively or negatively.

6. If the user responded positively, return true; otherwise, the user responded negatively: return false.

The prompt(message, default) method, when invoked, must run the following steps:

1. If the event loop's termination nesting level is non-zero, optionally abort these steps, returning null.

2. Release the storage mutex.

3. Optionally, return null and abort these steps. (For example, the user agent might give the user the option to ignore all prompts, and would thus abort at this step whenever the method was invoked.)

4. Show the given message to the user, and ask the user to either respond with a string value or abort. The second argument is optional. If the second argument (default) is present, then the response must be defaulted to the value given by default.

5. Pause while waiting for the user's response.

6. If the user aborts, then return null; otherwise, return the string that the user responded with.

When the print() method is invoked, if the Document is ready for post-load tasks, then the user agent must synchronously run the printing steps. Otherwise, the user agent must only set the print when loaded flag on the Document.

User agents should also run the printing steps whenever the user asks for the opportunity to obtain a physical form (e.g. printed copy), or the representation of a physical form (e.g. PDF copy), of a document.

The printing steps are as follows:

1. The user agent may display a message to the user and/or may abort these steps.

   For instance, a kiosk browser could silently ignore any invocations of the print() method.

   For instance, a browser on a mobile device could detect that there are no printers in the vicinity and display a message saying so before continuing to offer a "save to PDF" option.

2. The user agent must fire a simple event named beforeprint at the Window object of the Document that is being printed, as well as any nested browsing contexts in it.

   The beforeprint event can be used to annotate the printed copy, for instance adding the time at which the document was printed.

3. The user agent must release the storage mutex.

4. The user agent should offer the user the opportunity to obtain a physical form (or the representation of a physical form) of the document. The user agent may wait for the user to either accept or decline before returning; if so, the user agent must pause while the method is waiting. Even if the user agent doesn't wait at this point, the user agent must use the state of the relevant documents as they are at this point in the algorithm if and when it eventually creates the alternate form.

5. The user agent must fire a simple event named afterprint at the Window object of the Document that is being printed, as well as any nested browsing contexts in it.

   The afterprint event can be used to revert annotations added in the earlier event, as well as showing post-printing UI. For instance, if a page is walking the user through the steps of applying for a home loan, the script could automatically advance to the next step after having printed a form or other.

The showModalDialog(url, argument) method, when invoked, must cause the user agent to run the following steps:

1. Resolve url relative to the entry script's base URL.

   If this fails, then throw a SyntaxError exception and abort these steps.

2. If the event loop's termination nesting level is non-zero, optionally abort these steps, returning the empty string.

3. Release the storage mutex.

4. If the user agent is configured such that this invocation of showModalDialog() is somehow disabled, then return the empty string and abort these steps.

   User agents are expected to disable this method in certain cases to avoid user annoyance (e.g. as part of their popup blocker feature). For instance, a user agent could require that a site be white-listed before enabling this method, or the user agent could be configured to only allow one modal dialog at a time.

5. If the active sandboxing flag set of the active document of the browsing context of the script that invoked the method has its sandboxed auxiliary navigation browsing context flag set, then return the empty string and abort these steps.

6. Let the list of background browsing contexts be a list of all the browsing contexts that:

   • are part of the same unit of related browsing contexts as the browsing context of the Window object on which the showModalDialog() method was called, and that
   • have an active document whose origin is the same as the origin of the script that called the showModalDialog() method at the time the method was called,

   ...as well as any browsing contexts that are nested inside any of the browsing contexts matching those conditions.

7. Disable the user interface for all the browsing contexts in the list of background browsing contexts. This should prevent the user from navigating those browsing contexts, causing events to be sent to those browsing context, or editing any content in those browsing contexts. However, it does not prevent those browsing contexts from receiving events from sources other than the user, from running scripts, from running animations, and so forth.

8. Create a new auxiliary browsing context, with the opener browsing context being the browsing context of the Window object on which the showModalDialog() method was called. The new auxiliary browsing context has no name.

   This browsing context's Documents' Window objects all implement the WindowModal interface.

9. Set all the flags in the new browsing context's popup sandboxing flag set that are set in the active sandboxing flag set of the active document of the browsing context of the script that invoked the method. The browsing context of the script that invoked the method must be set as the new browsing context's one permitted sandboxed navigator.

10. Let the dialog arguments of the new browsing context be set to the value of argument, or the 'undefined' value if the argument was omitted.

11. Let the dialog arguments' origin be the origin of the script that called the showModalDialog() method.

12. Navigate the new browsing context to the absolute URL that resulted from resolving url earlier, with replacement enabled, and with the browsing context of the script that invoked the method as the source browsing context.

13. Spin the event loop until the new browsing context is closed. (The user agent must allow the user to indicate that the browsing context is to be closed.)

14. Reenable the user interface for all the browsing contexts in the list of background browsing contexts.

15. Return the auxiliary browsing context's return value.

The Window objects of Documents hosted by browsing contexts created by the above algorithm must also implement the WindowModal interface.

When this happens, the members of the WindowModal interface, in JavaScript environments, appear to actually be part of the Window interface (e.g. they are on the same prototype chain as the window.alert() method).

Such browsing contexts have associated dialog arguments, which are stored along with the dialog arguments' origin. These values are set by the showModalDialog() method in the algorithm above, when the browsing context is created, based on the arguments provided to the method.

The dialogArguments IDL attribute, on getting, must check whether its browsing context's active document's origin is the same as the dialog arguments' origin. If it is, then the browsing context's dialog arguments must be returned unchanged. Otherwise, if the dialog arguments are an object, then the empty string must be returned, and if the dialog arguments are not an object, then the stringification of the dialog arguments must be returned.

These browsing contexts also have an associated return value. The return value of a browsing context must be initialized to the empty string when the browsing context is created.

The returnValue IDL attribute, on getting, must return the return value of its browsing context, and on setting, must set the return value to the given new value.

The navigator attribute of the Window interface must return an instance of the Navigator interface, which represents the identity and state of the user agent (the client), and allows Web pages to register themselves as potential protocol and content handlers:

These interfaces are defined separately so that other specifications can re-use parts of the Navigator interface.

appName

Must return either the string "Netscape" or the full name of the browser, e.g. "Mellblom Browsernator".

appVersion

Must return either the string "4.0" or a string representing the version of the browser in detail, e.g. "1.0 (VMS; en-US) Mellblomenator/9000".

platform

Must return either the empty string or a string representing the platform on which the browser is executing, e.g. "MacIntel", "Win32", "FreeBSD i386", "WebTV OS".

userAgent

Must return the string used for the value of the "User-Agent" header in HTTP requests, or the empty string if no such header is ever sent.

Any information in this API that varies from user to user can be used to profile the user. In fact, if enough such information is available, a user can actually be uniquely identified. For this reason, user agent implementors are strongly urged to include as little information in this API as possible.

User agents may, within the constraints described in this section, do whatever they like when the methods are called. A UA could, for instance, prompt the user and offer the user the opportunity to add the site to a shortlist of handlers, or make the handlers his default, or cancel the request. UAs could provide such a UI through modal UI or through a non-modal transient notification interface. UAs could also simply silently collect the information, providing it only when relevant to the user.

User agents should keep track of which sites have registered handlers (even if the user has declined such registrations) so that the user is not repeatedly prompted with the same request.

The arguments to the methods have the following meanings and corresponding implementation requirements. The requirements that involve throwing exceptions must be processed in the order given below, stopping at the first exception thrown. (So the exceptions for the first argument take precedence over the exceptions for the second argument.)

scheme (registerProtocolHandler() only)

A scheme, such as mailto or web+auth. The scheme must be compared in an ASCII case-insensitive manner by user agents for the purposes of comparing with the scheme part of URLs that they consider against the list of registered handlers.

The scheme value, if it contains a colon (as in "mailto:"), will never match anything, since schemes don't contain colons.

If the registerProtocolHandler() method is invoked with a scheme that is neither a whitelisted scheme nor a scheme whose value starts with the substring "web+" and otherwise contains only characters in the range lowercase ASCII letters, the user agent must throw a SecurityError exception.

The following schemes are the whitelisted schemes:

• irc
• geo
• mailto
• magnet
• mms
• news
• nntp
• sip
• sms
• smsto
• ssh
• tel
• urn
• webcal
• xmpp

This list can be changed. If there are schemes that should be added, please send feedback.

This list excludes any schemes that could reasonably be expected to be supported inline, e.g. in an iframe, such as http or (more theoretically) gopher. If those were supported, they could potentially be used in man-in-the-middle attacks, by replacing pages that have frames with such content with content under the control of the protocol handler. If the user agent has native support for the schemes, this could further be used for cookie-theft attacks.

mimeType (registerContentHandler() only)

A MIME type, such as model/vnd.flatland.3dml or application/vnd.google-earth.kml+xml. The MIME type must be compared in an ASCII case-insensitive manner by user agents for the purposes of comparing with MIME types of documents that they consider against the list of registered handlers.

User agents must compare the given values only to the MIME type/subtype parts of content types, not to the complete type including parameters. Thus, if mimeType values passed to this method include characters such as commas or whitespace, or include MIME parameters, then the handler being registered will never be used.

The type is compared to the MIME type used by the user agent after the sniffing algorithms have been applied.

If the registerContentHandler() method is invoked with a MIME type that is in the type blacklist or that the user agent has deemed a privileged type, the user agent must throw a SecurityError exception.

The following MIME types are in the type blacklist:

• application/x-www-form-urlencoded
• application/xhtml+xml
• application/xml
• image/gif
• image/jpeg
• image/png
• image/svg+xml
• multipart/x-mixed-replace
• text/cache-manifest
• text/css
• text/html
• text/ping
• text/plain
• text/xml
• All types that the user agent supports displaying natively in a browsing context during navigation, except for application/rss+xml and application/atom+xml

This list can be changed. If there are schemes that should be added, please send feedback.

url

A string used to build the URL of the page that will handle the requests.

User agents must throw a SyntaxError exception if the url argument passed to one of these methods does not contain the exact literal string "%s".

User agents must throw a SyntaxError if resolving the url argument relative to the entry script's base URL, is not successful.

The resulting absolute URL would by definition not be a valid URL as it would include the string "%s" which is not a valid component in a URL.

User agents must throw a SecurityError exception if the resulting absolute URL has an origin that differs from the origin of the entry script.

This is forcibly the case if the %s placeholder is in the scheme, host, or port parts of the URL.

The resulting absolute URL is the proto-URL. It identifies the handler for the purposes of the methods described below.

When the user agent uses this handler, it must replace the first occurrence of the exact literal string "%s" in the url argument with an escaped version of the absolute URL of the content in question (as defined below), then resolve the resulting URL, relative to the base URL of the entry script at the time the registerContentHandler() or registerProtocolHandler() methods were invoked, and then navigate an appropriate browsing context to the resulting URL using the GET method (or equivalent for non-HTTP URLs).

To get the escaped version of the absolute URL of the content in question, the user agent must replace every character in that absolute URL that doesn't match the <query> production defined in RFC 3986 by the percent-encoded form of that character. [RFC3986]

If the user had visited a site at http://example.com/ that made the following call:

navigator.registerContentHandler('application/x-soup', 'soup?url=%s', 'SoupWeb™')

...and then, much later, while visiting http://www.example.net/, clicked on a link such as:

<a href="chickenkïwi.soup">Download our Chicken Kïwi soup!</a>

...then, assuming this chickenkïwi.soup file was served with the MIME type application/x-soup, the UA might navigate to the following URL:

http://example.com/soup?url=http://www.example.net/chickenk%C3%AFwi.soup

This site could then fetch the chickenkïwi.soup file and do whatever it is that it does with soup (synthesize it and ship it to the user, or whatever).

title

A descriptive title of the handler, which the UA might use to remind the user what the site in question is.

This section does not define how the pages registered by these methods are used, beyond the requirements on how to process the url value (see above). To some extent, the processing model for navigating across documents defines some cases where these methods are relevant, but in general UAs may use this information wherever they would otherwise consider handing content to native plugins or helper applications.

UAs must not use registered content handlers to handle content that was returned as part of a non-GET transaction (or rather, as part of any non-idempotent transaction), as the remote site would not be able to fetch the same data.

The isProtocolHandlerRegistered() method must return the handler state string that most closely describes the current state of the handler described by the two arguments to the method, where the first argument gives the scheme and the second gives the string used to build the URL of the page that will handle the requests.

The first argument must be compared to the schemes for which custom protocol handlers are registered in an ASCII case-insensitive manner to find the relevant handlers.

The second argument must be preprocessed as described below, and if that is successful, must then be matched against the proto-URLs of the relevant handlers to find the described handler.

The isContentHandlerRegistered() method must return the handler state string that most closely describes the current state of the handler described by the two arguments to the method, where the first argument gives the MIME type and the second gives the string used to build the URL of the page that will handle the requests.

The first argument must be compared to the MIME types for which custom content handlers are registered in an ASCII case-insensitive manner to find the relevant handlers.

The second argument must be preprocessed as described below, and if that is successful, must then be matched against the proto-URLs of the relevant handlers to find the described handler.

The handler state strings are the following strings. Each string describes several situations, as given by the following list.

new

The described handler has never been registered for the given scheme or type.

The described handler was once registered for the given scheme or type, but the site has since unregistered it. If the handler were to be reregistered, the user would be notified accordingly.

The described handler was once registered for the given scheme or type, but the site has since unregistered it, but the user has indicated that the site is to be blocked from registering the type again, so the user agent would ignore further registration attempts.

registered

An attempt was made to register the described handler for the given scheme or type, but the user has not yet been notified, and the user agent would ignore further registration attempts. (Maybe the user agent batches registration requests to display them when the user requests to be notified about them, and the user has not yet requested that the user agent notify it of the previous registration attempt.)

The described handler is registered for the given scheme or type (maybe, or maybe not, as the default handler).

The described handler is permanently blocked from being (re)registered. (Maybe the user marked the registration attempt as spam, or blocked the site for other reasons.)

declined

An attempt was made to register the described handler for the given scheme or type, but the user has not yet been notified; however, the user might be notified if another registration attempt were to be made. (Maybe the last registration attempt was made while the page was in the background and the user closed the page without looking at it, and the user agent requires confirmation for this registration attempt.)

An attempt was made to register the described handler for the given scheme or type, but the user has not yet responded.

An attempt was made to register the described handler for the given scheme or type, but the user declined the offer. The user has not indicated that the handler is to be permanently blocked, however, so another attempt to register the described handler might result in the user being prompted again.

The described handler was once registered for the given scheme or type, but the user has since removed it. The user has not indicated that the handler is to be permanently blocked, however, so another attempt to register the described handler might result in the user being prompted again.

The unregisterProtocolHandler() method must unregister the handler described by the two arguments to the method, where the first argument gives the scheme and the second gives the string used to build the URL of the page that will handle the requests.

The first argument must be compared to the schemes for which custom protocol handlers are registered in an ASCII case-insensitive manner to find the relevant handlers.

The second argument must be preprocessed as described below, and if that is successful, must then be matched against the proto-URLs of the relevant handlers to find the described handler.

The unregisterContentHandler() method must unregister the handler described by the two arguments to the method, where the first argument gives the MIME type and the second gives the string used to build the URL of the page that will handle the requests.

The first argument must be compared to the MIME types for which custom content handlers are registered in an ASCII case-insensitive manner to find the relevant handlers.

The second argument must be preprocessed as described below, and if that is successful, must then be matched against the proto-URLs of the relevant handlers to find the described handler.

The second argument of the four methods described above must be preprocessed as follows:

1. If the string does not contain the substring "%s", abort these steps. There's no matching handler.

2. Resolve the string relative to the base URL of the entry script.

3. If this fails, then throw a SyntaxError exception, aborting the method.

4. If the resoluting absolute URL's origin is not the same origin as that of the entry script throw a SecurityError exception, aborting the method.

5. Return the resulting absolute URL as the result of preprocessing the argument.

6.5.1.3 Security and privacy

These mechanisms can introduce a number of concerns, in particular privacy concerns.

Hijacking all Web usage. User agents should not allow schemes that are key to its normal operation, such as http or https, to be rerouted through third-party sites. This would allow a user's activities to be trivially tracked, and would allow user information, even in secure connections, to be collected.

Hijacking defaults. It is strongly recommended that user agents do not automatically change any defaults, as this could lead the user to send data to remote hosts that the user is not expecting. New handlers registering themselves should never automatically cause those sites to be used.

Registration spamming. User agents should consider the possibility that a site will attempt to register a large number of handlers, possibly from multiple domains (e.g. by redirecting through a series of pages each on a different domain, and each registering a handler for video/mpeg — analogous practices abusing other Web browser features have been used by pornography Web sites for many years). User agents should gracefully handle such hostile attempts, protecting the user.

Misleading titles. User agents should not rely wholly on the title argument to the methods when presenting the registered handlers to the user, since sites could easily lie. For example, a site hostile.example.net could claim that it was registering the "Cuddly Bear Happy Content Handler". User agents should therefore use the handler's domain in any UI along with any title.

Hostile handler metadata. User agents should protect against typical attacks against strings embedded in their interface, for example ensuring that markup or escape characters in such strings are not executed, that null bytes are properly handled, that over-long strings do not cause crashes or buffer overruns, and so forth.

Leaking Intranet URLs. The mechanism described in this section can result in secret Intranet URLs being leaked, in the following manner:

1. The user registers a third-party content handler as the default handler for a content type.
2. The user then browses his corporate Intranet site and accesses a document that uses that content type.
3. The user agent contacts the third party and hands the third party the URL to the Intranet content.

No actual confidential file data is leaked in this manner, but the URLs themselves could contain confidential information. For example, the URL could be http://www.corp.example.com/upcoming-aquisitions/the-sample-company.egf, which might tell the third party that Example Corporation is intending to merge with The Sample Company. Implementors might wish to consider allowing administrators to disable this feature for certain subdomains, content types, or schemes.

Leaking secure URLs. User agents should not send HTTPS URLs to third-party sites registered as content handlers without the user's informed consent, for the same reason that user agents sometimes avoid sending Referer (sic) HTTP headers from secure sites to third-party sites.

Leaking credentials. User agents must never send username or password information in the URLs that are escaped and included sent to the handler sites. User agents may even avoid attempting to pass to Web-based handlers the URLs of resources that are known to require authentication to access, as such sites would be unable to access the resources in question without prompting the user for credentials themselves (a practice that would require the user to know whether to trust the third-party handler, a decision many users are unable to make or even understand).

6.5.1.4 Sample user interface

This section is non-normative.

A simple implementation of this feature for a desktop Web browser might work as follows.

The registerContentHandler() method could display a modal dialog box:

In this dialog box, "Kittens at work" is the title of the page that invoked the method, "http://kittens.example.org/" is the URL of that page, "application/x-meowmeow" is the string that was passed to the registerContentHandler() method as its first argument (mimeType), "http://kittens.example.org/?show=%s" was the second argument (url), and "Kittens-at-work displayer" was the third argument (title).

If the user clicks the Cancel button, then nothing further happens. If the user clicks the "Trust" button, then the handler is remembered.

When the user then attempts to fetch a URL that uses the "application/x-meowmeow" MIME type, then it might display a dialog as follows:

In this dialog, the third option is the one that was primed by the site registering itself earlier.

If the user does select that option, then the browser, in accordance with the requirements described in the previous two sections, will redirect the user to "http://kittens.example.org/?show=data%3Aapplication/x-meowmeow;base64,S2l0dGVucyBhcmUgdGhlIGN1dGVzdCE%253D".

The registerProtocolHandler() method would work equivalently, but for schemes instead of unknown content types.

The yieldForStorageUpdates() method, when invoked, must, if the storage mutex is owned by the event loop of the task that resulted in the method being called, release the storage mutex so that it is once again free. Otherwise, it must do nothing.

The external attribute of the Window interface must return an instance of the External interface. The same object must be returned each time.

The AddSearchProvider() method, when invoked, must run the following steps:

1. Optionally, abort these steps. User agents may implement the method as a stub method that never does anything, or may arbitrarily ignore invocations with particular arguments for security, privacy, or usability reasons.

2. Resolve the value of the method's first argument relative to the entry script's base URL.

3. If this fails, abort these steps.

4. Process the resulting absolute URL as the URL to an OpenSearch description document. [OPENSEARCH]

The IsSearchProviderInstalled() method, when invoked, must run the following steps:

1. Optionally, return 0 and abort these steps. User agents may implement the method as a stub method that never returns a non-zero value, or may arbitrarily ignore invocations with particular arguments for security, privacy, or usability reasons.

2. If the origin of the entry script is an opaque identifier (i.e. it has no host component), then return 0 and abort these steps.

3. Let host1 be the host component of the origin of the entry script.

4. Resolve the scriptURL argument relative to the entry script's base URL.

5. If this fails, return 0 and abort these steps.

6. Let host2 be be the <host> component of the resulting absolute URL.

7. If the longest suffix in the Public Suffix List that matches the end of host1 is different than the longest suffix in the Public Suffix List that matches the end of host2, then return 0 and abort these steps. [PSL]

   If the next domain component of host1 and host2 after their common suffix are not the same, then return 0 and abort these steps.

   Domain labels must be compared after applying the IDNA ToASCII algorithm to them, with both the AllowUnassigned and UseSTD3ASCIIRules flags set, in an ASCII case-insensitive manner. [RFC3490]

8. Let search engines be the list of search engines known by the user agent and made available to the user by the user agent for which the resulting absolute URL is a prefix match of the search engine's URL, if any. For search engines registered using OpenSearch description documents, the URL of the search engine corresponds to the URL given in a Url element whose rel attribute is "results" (the default). [OPENSEARCH]

9. If search engines is empty, return 0 and abort these steps.

10. If the user's default search engine (as determined by the user agent) is one of the search engines in search engines, then return 2 and abort these steps.

11. Return 1.