How to display a confirmation dialog when clicking an <a> link?

Question

Inline event handler

In the most simple way, you can use the confirm() function in an inline onclick handler.

<a href="delete.php?id=22" onclick="return confirm('Are you sure?')">Link</a>

Advanced event handling

But normally you would like to separate your HTML and Javascript, so I suggest you don't use inline event handlers, but put a class on your link and add an event listener to it.

<a href="delete.php?id=22" class="confirmation">Link</a>
...
<script type="text/javascript">
    var elems = document.getElementsByClassName('confirmation');
    var confirmIt = function (e) {
        if (!confirm('Are you sure?')) e.preventDefault();
    };
    for (var i = 0, l = elems.length; i < l; i++) {
        elems[i].addEventListener('click', confirmIt, false);
    }
</script>

This example will only work in modern browsers (for older IEs you can use attachEvent(), returnValue and provide an implementation for getElementsByClassName() or use a library like jQuery that will help with cross-browser issues). You can read more about this advanced event handling method on MDN.

jQuery

I'd like to stay far away from being considered a jQuery fanboy, but DOM manipulation and event handling are two areas where it helps the most with browser differences. Just for fun, here is how this would look with jQuery:

<a href="delete.php?id=22" class="confirmation">Link</a>
...
<!-- Include jQuery - see http://jquery.com -->
<script type="text/javascript">
    $('.confirmation').on('click', function () {
        return confirm('Are you sure?');
    });
</script>

You can also try this:

<a href="" onclick="if (confirm('Delete selected item?')){return true;}else{event.stopPropagation(); event.preventDefault();};" title="Link Title">
    Link Text
</a>

I'd suggest avoiding in-line JavaScript:

var aElems = document.getElementsByTagName('a');

for (var i = 0, len = aElems.length; i < len; i++) {
    aElems[i].onclick = function() {
        var check = confirm("Are you sure you want to leave?");
        if (check == true) {
            return true;
        }
        else {
            return false;
        }
    };
}​

JS Fiddle demo.

The above updated to reduce space, though maintaining clarity/function:

var aElems = document.getElementsByTagName('a');

for (var i = 0, len = aElems.length; i < len; i++) {
    aElems[i].onclick = function() {
        return confirm("Are you sure you want to leave?");
    };
}

JS Fiddle demo.

A somewhat belated update, to use addEventListener() (as suggested, by bažmegakapa, in the comments below):

function reallySure (event) {
    var message = 'Are you sure about that?';
    action = confirm(message) ? true : event.preventDefault();
}
var aElems = document.getElementsByTagName('a');

for (var i = 0, len = aElems.length; i < len; i++) {
    aElems[i].addEventListener('click', reallySure);
}

JS Fiddle demo.

The above binds a function to the event of each individual link; which is potentially quite wasteful, when you could bind the event-handling (using delegation) to an ancestor element, such as the following:

function reallySure (event) {
    var message = 'Are you sure about that?';
    action = confirm(message) ? true : event.preventDefault();
}

function actionToFunction (event) {
    switch (event.target.tagName.toLowerCase()) {
        case 'a' :
            reallySure(event);
            break;
        default:
            break;
    }
}

document.body.addEventListener('click', actionToFunction);

JS Fiddle demo.

Because the event-handling is attached to the body element, which normally contains a host of other, clickable, elements I've used an interim function (actionToFunction) to determine what to do with that click. If the clicked element is a link, and therefore has a tagName of a, the click-handling is passed to the reallySure() function.

References:

• addEventListener().
• Conditional ('ternary') operator.
• confirm().
• getElementsByTagName().
• onclick.
• if () {}.

<a href="delete.php?id=22" onclick = "if (! confirm('Continue?')) { return false; }">Confirm OK, then goto URL (uses onclick())</a>