Global variable declaration issue in IE7

[seanhodges]

This does not occur in IE9, I have not tested others...

Instantiating the parser in IE7 causes the following Javascript error to occur:

"TypeError: 'S' is undefined"

Moving the declaration of 'S' further up the script (above the SAXParser constructor) fixes the problem, but then chokes during a parse on the 'whitespace' global variable:

"TypeError: 'whitespace' is undefined"

Again, the workaround is to move 'whitespace' above the constructor. Finally, IE7 does not support the Object.create function:

"TypeError: Object doesn't support this property or method"

I added Crockford's Object.create implementation in my own code to support this, however I believe you have a declaration in sax.js that might work by moving up the script as well.

[seanhodges]

I have attached below a dirty patch for my fix - sorry I don't have a lot of time to fork and patch upstream right now:

Index: lib/sax.js
===================================================================
--- lib/sax.js  (revision 32424)
+++ lib/sax.js  (revision 32425)
@@ -43,6 +43,92 @@
   , "closenamespace"
   ]
 
+/////////////////////////////////////////
+// SEAN: Moved this declaration block here to support IE7...
+var S = 0
+sax.STATE =
+{ BEGIN                     : S++
+    , TEXT                      : S++ // general stuff
+    , TEXT_ENTITY               : S++ // & and such.
+    , OPEN_WAKA                 : S++ // <
+    , SGML_DECL                 : S++ // 
+    , SCRIPT                    : S++ // <script> ...
+    , SCRIPT_ENDING             : S++ // <script> ... <
+}
+
+sax.ENTITIES =
+{ "apos" : "'"
+    , "quot" : "\""
+    , "amp"  : "&"
+    , "gt"   : ">"
+    , "lt"   : "<"
+}
+
+for (var S in sax.STATE) sax.STATE[sax.STATE[S]] = S
+
+// shorthand
+S = sax.STATE
+
+
+// character classes and tokens
+var whitespace = "\r\n\t "
+    // this really needs to be replaced with character classes.
+    // XML allows all manner of ridiculous numbers and digits.
+    , number = "0124356789"
+    , letter = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"
+    // (Letter | "_" | ":")
+    , nameStart = letter+"_:"
+        , nameBody = nameStart+number+"-."
+        , quote = "'\""
+        , entity = number+letter+"#"
+        , attribEnd = whitespace + ">"
+        , CDATA = "[CDATA["
+        , DOCTYPE = "DOCTYPE"
+        , XML_NAMESPACE = "http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace"
+        , XMLNS_NAMESPACE = "http://www.w3.org/2000/xmlns/"
+        , rootNS = { xml: XML_NAMESPACE, xmlns: XMLNS_NAMESPACE }
+
+// turn all the string character sets into character class objects.
+whitespace = charClass(whitespace)
+number = charClass(number)
+letter = charClass(letter)
+nameStart = charClass(nameStart)
+nameBody = charClass(nameBody)
+quote = charClass(quote)
+entity = charClass(entity)
+attribEnd = charClass(attribEnd)
+
+// SEAN: Declaration block end
+/////////////////////////////////////////
+
 function SAXParser (strict, opt) {
   if (!(this instanceof SAXParser)) return new SAXParser(strict, opt)
 
@@ -223,34 +309,8 @@
 
 
 
-// character classes and tokens
-var whitespace = "\r\n\t "
-  // this really needs to be replaced with character classes.
-  // XML allows all manner of ridiculous numbers and digits.
-  , number = "0124356789"
-  , letter = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"
-  // (Letter | "_" | ":")
-  , nameStart = letter+"_:"
-  , nameBody = nameStart+number+"-."
-  , quote = "'\""
-  , entity = number+letter+"#"
-  , attribEnd = whitespace + ">"
-  , CDATA = "[CDATA["
-  , DOCTYPE = "DOCTYPE"
-  , XML_NAMESPACE = "http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace"
-  , XMLNS_NAMESPACE = "http://www.w3.org/2000/xmlns/"
-  , rootNS = { xml: XML_NAMESPACE, xmlns: XMLNS_NAMESPACE }
 
-// turn all the string character sets into character class objects.
-whitespace = charClass(whitespace)
-number = charClass(number)
-letter = charClass(letter)
-nameStart = charClass(nameStart)
-nameBody = charClass(nameBody)
-quote = charClass(quote)
-entity = charClass(entity)
-attribEnd = charClass(attribEnd)
-
 function charClass (str) {
   return str.split("").reduce(function (s, c) {
     s[c] = true
@@ -266,58 +326,10 @@
   return !charclass[c]
 }
 
-var S = 0
-sax.STATE =
-{ BEGIN                     : S++
-, TEXT                      : S++ // general stuff
-, TEXT_ENTITY               : S++ // & and such.
-, OPEN_WAKA                 : S++ // <
-, SGML_DECL                 : S++ // 
-, SCRIPT                    : S++ // <script> ...
-, SCRIPT_ENDING             : S++ // <script> ... <
-}
 
-sax.ENTITIES =
-{ "apos" : "'"
-, "quot" : "\""
-, "amp"  : "&"
-, "gt"   : ">"
-, "lt"   : "<"
-}
-
-for (var S in sax.STATE) sax.STATE[sax.STATE[S]] = S
-
-// shorthand
-S = sax.STATE
-
 function emit (parser, event, data) {
   parser[event] && parser[event](data)
 }

[dscape]

You can fork this project, applies the fixes, send a pull request. In the commit reference "Fixes #68" to close this issue

[seanhodges]

The above fix was a quick-and-dirty hack and has not been checked against the test suite. Once I get time I'll fork and test it properly; but in the meantime the patch above gives an opportunity for someone else to apply the same workaround or suggest a more elegant fix.

[isaacs]

@seanhodges On the blob page on github, you can actually edit the file right there, and then it'll automatically make a pull req for you.

I am willing to accept contributions on this, but please send a patch via a pull request, or you can use the more oldschool method:

git clone git://github.com/isaacs/sax-js.git
cd sax-js
# make your changes
git commit -m "Fix #68 Some reasonable short message goes here"
git format-patch HEAD^
# that creates a file like 0001-Fix-68-Some-reasonable-short-message-goes-here.patch
# get that file to me.  https://gist.github.com/ is a common way to do that.  email works, too.

The patch should not have a block comment with your name. That's what commit history is for. We can always git blame to see where code came from much more effectively :)