Using javascript objects passed from closed popup

Anatoly Mironov

June 19, 2012

It is not a rocket science to pass objects from child window (popup) to main window. The problem I encountered today was IE and passing complex objects. So it is just an IE issue as far as I know. The problem occurs when you pass some object (not a simple String or Number) to main window:

window.opener.takeAnObjectFromChild = { 
      title: "Should even be available when I close the child" 
};

and you then close the child window, next time the main window tries to access the passed object:

console.log(takeAnObjectFromChild);

you’ll get

The callee (server [not server application]) is not available and disappeared; all connections are invalid. The call did not execute.

Sometimes you can get this error:

Can’t execute code from a freed script

Weird. I saw a solution which “serializes” the object before passing to the main window. But for complex object it would be more headache actually. A better solution is actually to deep clone the object in the main window before closing the popup. If jQuery is there, just run jQuery.extend, like John Resig said :):

window.myClonedObject = jQuery.extend(true, {}, window.takeAnObjectFromChild);

comments from wordpress

Vonnie Levitz — 2012-07-06

I had this content saved a while ago but my notebook crashed. I have since gotten a new one and it took me a while to come across this! I also really like the design though. cerkiner.tk