Handling Multiple Scripts in a Web Page


Introduction

This article shows how to handle multiple scripts in a web page. Actually the traditional mechanism for registering event handlers through JavaScript is to assign a function to the DOM (Document Object Model) element's corresponding attribute.

For example, suppose we had a function:~

        function doStuff() {

            document.writeln("my test line");
       
}

Now, we could then either assign it within our HTML markup:~

<body onload="doStuff();">

</body>

Or, we could assign it from within JavaScript code:~

window.onload = doStuff();

Here is the complete design:~

image001.png

Both approaches will cause the function to execute when the page is loaded. But the advantage of the second is that the behavior is more cleanly separated from the markup.

This strategy works quite well with one function. Let's suppose we have another function:~

        function doStuff() {

            document.writeln("my test line");

        }

        function doAnotherStuff() {

            document.writeln("my another test line");

        }

Now, we could then attempt to assign this function to run on page load:~

window.onload = doStuff() + doAnotherStuff();

OR

window.onload = doStuff();

window.onload = doAnotherStuff();

Here is the complete design:~

image002.png

Works well so far, but this assignment actually trumps the first one. The .onload attribute can only store one function reference at a time. So, we can't add this to the existing behavior.

Now the $(document).ready() mechanism handles this gracefully. Each call to the method adds the new function to an internal queue of behaviors; when the page is loaded all of the functions will execute. The functions will run in the order in which they were registered for the page.

Here is the complete design:

image003.png

I hope you like it. Thanks.

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