1. 8.4 Dynamic markup insertion
      1. 8.4.1 Opening the input stream
      2. 8.4.2 Closing the input stream
      3. 8.4.3 document.write()
      4. 8.4.4 document.writeln()

8.4 Dynamic markup insertion

APIs for dynamically inserting markup into the document interact with the parser, and thus their behavior varies depending on whether they are used with HTML documents (and the HTML parser ) or XML documents (and the XML parser ).

Document objects have a throw-on-dynamic-markup-insertion counter , which is used in conjunction with the create an element for the token algorithm to prevent custom element constructors from being able to use document.open() , document.close() , and document.write() when they are invoked by the parser. Initially, the counter must be set to zero.

8.4.1 Opening the input stream

The open() method comes in several variants with different numbers of arguments.
document = document . open ( [ type [, replace ] ] )

Causes the Document to be replaced in-place, as if it was a new Document object, but reusing the previous object, which is then returned.

If the type argument is omitted or has the value " text/html ", then the The resulting Document has an HTML parser associated with it, which can be given data to parse using document.write() . Otherwise, all content passed to document.write() will be parsed as plain text. If the replace argument is present and has the value " replace ", the existing entries in the session history for the Document object are removed.

The method has no effect if the Document is still being parsed.

Throws an " InvalidStateError " DOMException if the Document is an XML document .

Throws an " InvalidStateError " DOMException if the parser is currently executing a custom element constructor .

window = document . open ( url , name , features )

Works like the window.open() method.

Document objects have an ignore-opens-during-unload counter , which is used to prevent scripts from invoking the document.open() method (directly or indirectly) while the document is being unloaded . Initially, the counter must be set to zero.

The document open steps , given a document , type , and replaceInput , are as follows:

  1. If document is an XML document , then throw an " InvalidStateError " DOMException exception.

  2. If document 's throw-on-dynamic-markup-insertion counter is greater than 0, then throw an " InvalidStateError " DOMException .

  3. If Let document entryDocument is not an active document , then return be the responsible document . specified by the entry settings object .

  4. If document 's origin is not same origin to the entryDocument 's origin of the responsible document specified by the entry settings object , then throw a " SecurityError " DOMException .

  5. If document has an active parser whose script nesting level is greater than 0, then return document .

    This basically causes document.open() to be ignored when it's called in an inline script found during parsing, while still letting it have an effect when called from a non-parser task such as a timer callback or event handler.

  6. Similarly, if document 's ignore-opens-during-unload counter is greater than 0, then return document .

    This basically causes document.open() to be ignored when it's called from a beforeunload , pagehide , or unload event handler while the Document is being unloaded.

  7. Let replace be false.

    If replaceInput document has a browsing context and there is an ASCII case-insensitive match for " replace ", then set replace existing attempt to true. Otherwise, if navigate document 's browsing context , then stop document loading 's session history contains only one Document given document .

    Issue #3447 object, and that was looks into the about:blank Document distinction between an ongoing instance of the navigate created when document 's browsing context algorithm versus tasks to navigate was created , and that Document object has never had are still queued. For the unload a document purpose of implementing this step, both an ongoing instance of the navigate algorithm invoked on it (e.g., by a previous call and tasks queued to document.open() navigate ), then set replace should be counted towards "an existing attempt to true. navigate ," before that issue is resolved.

  8. Set For each shadow-including inclusive descendant document node 's salvageable state to false. Prompt to unload of document . If the user refused to allow the document to be unloaded , then return , erase all event listeners and handlers given document node .

  9. Unload If document , with the recycle parameter set to true. is the associated Document Abort of document . Unregister 's relevant global object , then erase all event listeners registered on document and its descendants. Remove any tasks handlers associated with given document in any task source 's relevant global object .

  10. Remove Replace all child nodes of with null within document , without firing any mutation events.

  11. Call the JavaScript InitializeHostDefinedRealm() abstract operation with the following customizations: For the global object, create a new Window object window . For the global this value, use If document 's browsing context 's associated WindowProxy . This is not universally implemented and can perhaps be removed; see issue #1698 . fully active , then:

    1. Let realm execution context newURL be the running JavaScript execution context . This is the JavaScript execution context created in the previous step. Set up a window environment settings object with realm execution context . Set the active document of document 's browsing context to document with window . Replace document 's singleton objects with new instances copy of those objects, created in window 's Realm . (This includes in particular the History , ApplicationCache , and Navigator , objects, the various BarProp objects, the two Storage objects, the various HTMLCollection objects, and objects defined by other specifications, like Selection . It also includes all the Web IDL prototypes in the JavaScript binding, including document 's prototype.) Change document entryDocument 's character encoding to UTF-8 URL .

    2. If document entryDocument is ready for post-load tasks , then set not document 's reload override flag and , then set document 's reload override buffer to the empty string. Set document newURL 's salvageable fragment state back to true. null.

    3. Change document 's URL to Run the URL and history update steps of the responsible with document specified by the entry settings object . and newURL .

  12. If document 's iframe load in progress flag is set, then set document 's mute iframe load flag.

  13. Set document to no-quirks mode .

  14. Create a new HTML parser and associate it with document . This is a script-created parser (meaning that it can be closed by the document.open() and document.close() methods, and that the tokenizer will wait for an explicit call to document.close() before emitting an end-of-file token). The encoding confidence is irrelevant .

  15. Set the current document readiness of document to " loading ".

  16. If type is an ASCII case-insensitive match for the string " replace ", then, for historical reasons, set it to the string " text/html ". Otherwise: If the type string contains a U+003B SEMICOLON character (;), remove the first such character and all characters from it up to the end of the string. Strip leading and trailing ASCII whitespace from type . If type is not now an ASCII case-insensitive match for the string " text/html ", then act as if the tokenizer had emitted a start tag token with the tag name "pre" followed by a single U+000A LINE FEED (LF) character, then switch the HTML parser 's tokenizer to the PLAINTEXT state . Remove any tasks queued by the history traversal task source that are associated with any Document objects in the top-level browsing context 's document family . Remove all the entries in the browsing context 's session history after the current entry . If the current entry is the last entry in the session history, then no entries are removed. This doesn't necessarily have to affect the user agent's user interface. Remove any earlier entries whose Document object is document . If replace is false, then add a new entry, just before the last entry, and associate with the new entry the text that was parsed by the previous parser associated with document , as well as the state of document at the start of these steps. This allows the user to step backwards in the session history to see the page before it was blown away by the document.open() call. This new entry does not have a Document object, so a new one will be created if the session history is traversed to that entry. Set document 's fired unload flag to false. (It could have been set to true during the unload step above.)

    Finally, set the insertion point to point at just before the end of the input stream (which at this point will be empty).

  17. Return document .

When invoked with two arguments

The document open steps do not affect whether a Document is ready for post-load tasks or fewer, the completely loaded .

The document.open( open( type unused1 , replace unused2 ) method must return the result of running the document open steps with this Document object, object.

The type , unused1 and replace . The document.open() unused2 arguments are ignored, but kept in the IDL to allow code that calls the function with one or two arguments to continue working. They are necessary due to Web IDL overload resolution algorithm method does not affect whether rules, which would throw a Document TypeError is ready exception for post-load tasks such calls had the arguments not been there. heycam/webidl#581 or completely loaded . investigates changing the algorithm to allow for their removal. [WEBIDL]

When invoked with three arguments, the The open( url , name , features ) method must run these steps:

  1. If this Document object is not an active document , then throw an " InvalidStateError " DOMException exception.

  2. Return the result of running the window open steps with url , name , and features .

8.4.2 Closing the input stream

document . close ()

Closes the input stream that was opened by the document.open() method.

Throws an " InvalidStateError " DOMException if the Document is an XML document .

Throws an " InvalidStateError " DOMException if the parser is currently executing a custom element constructor .

The close() method must run the following steps:

  1. If the Document object is an XML document , then throw an " InvalidStateError " DOMException .

  2. If the Document object's throw-on-dynamic-markup-insertion counter is greater than zero, then throw an " InvalidStateError " DOMException .

  3. If there is no script-created parser associated with the document, then return.

  4. Insert an explicit "EOF" character at the end of the parser's input stream .

  5. If there is a pending parsing-blocking script , then return.

  6. Run the tokenizer, processing resulting tokens as they are emitted, and stopping when the tokenizer reaches the explicit "EOF" character or spins the event loop .

8.4.3 document.write()

document . write ( text ...)

In general, adds the given string(s) to the Document 's input stream.

This method has very idiosyncratic behavior. In some cases, this method can affect the state of the HTML parser while the parser is running, resulting in a DOM that does not correspond to the source of the document (e.g. if the string written is the string " <plaintext> " or " <!-- "). In other cases, the call can clear the current page first, as if document.open() had been called. In yet more cases, the method is simply ignored, or throws an exception. Users agents are explicitly allowed to avoid executing script elements inserted via this method . And to make matters even worse, the exact behavior of this method can in some cases be dependent on network latency, which can lead to failures that are very hard to debug. For all these reasons, use of this method is strongly discouraged.

Throws an " InvalidStateError " DOMException when invoked on XML documents .

Throws an " InvalidStateError " DOMException if the parser is currently executing a custom element constructor .

Document objects have an ignore-destructive-writes counter , which is used in conjunction with the processing of script elements to prevent external scripts from being able to use document.write() to blow away the document by implicitly calling document.open() . Initially, the counter must be set to zero.

The document write steps , given a Document object document and a string input , are as follows:

  1. If document is an XML document , then throw an " InvalidStateError " DOMException .

  2. If document 's throw-on-dynamic-markup-insertion counter is greater than 0, then throw an " InvalidStateError " DOMException .

  3. If document is not an active document , then return.

    If the insertion point is undefined, then:

    1. If document 's ignore-opens-during-unload counter is greater than 0 or document 's ignore-destructive-writes counter is greater than 0, then return.

    2. Run the document open steps with document , " text/html ", and the empty string. If the user refused to allow the document to be unloaded , then return. Otherwise, the insertion point will point at just before the end of the (empty) input stream . .

  4. Insert input into the input stream just before the insertion point . If document 's reload override flag is set, then append input to document 's reload override buffer .

  5. If there is no pending parsing-blocking script , have the HTML parser process input , one code point at a time, processing resulting tokens as they are emitted, and stopping when the tokenizer reaches the insertion point or when the processing of the tokenizer is aborted by the tree construction stage (this can happen if a script end tag token is emitted by the tokenizer).

    If the document.write() method was called from script executing inline (i.e. executing because the parser parsed a set of script tags), then this is a reentrant invocation of the parser . If the parser pause flag is set, the tokenizer will abort immediately and no HTML will be parsed, per the tokenizer's parser pause flag check .

The document.write(...) method, when invoked, must run the document write steps with this Document object and a string that is the concatanation of all arguments passed.

8.4.4 document.writeln()

document . writeln ( text ...)

Adds the given string(s) to the Document 's input stream, followed by a newline character. If necessary, calls the open() method implicitly first.

Throws an " InvalidStateError " DOMException when invoked on XML documents .

Throws an " InvalidStateError " DOMException if the parser is currently executing a custom element constructor .

The document.writeln(...) method, when invoked, must run the document write steps with this Document object and a string that is the concatanation of all arguments passed and U+000A LINE FEED.