I have a page that is loading a script from a third party (news feed). The src
url for the script is assigned dynamically on load up (per third party code).
<div id="div1287">
<!-- dynamically-generated elements will go here. -->
</div>
<script id="script0348710783" type="javascript/text">
</script>
<script type="javascript/text">
document.getElementById('script0348710783').src='http://oneBigHairyURL';
</script>
The script loaded from http://oneBigHairyURL
then creates and loads elements with the various stuff from the news feed, with pretty formatting, etc. into div1287
(the Id "div1287" is passed in http://oneBigHairyURL
so the script knows where to load the content).
The only problem is, it only loads it once. I'd like it to reload (and thus display new content) every n seconds.
So, I thought I'd try this:
<div id="div1287">
<!-- dynamically-generated elements will go here. -->
</div>
<script id="script0348710783" type="javascript/text">
</script>
<script type="javascript/text">
loadItUp=function() {
alert('loading...');
var divElement = document.getElementById('div1287');
var scrElement = document.getElementById('script0348710783');
divElement.innerHTML='';
scrElement.innerHTML='';
scrElement.src='';
scrElement.src='http://oneBigHairyURL';
setTimeout(loadItUp, 10000);
};
loadItUp();
</script>
I get the alert, the div clears, but no dynamically-generated HTML is reloaded to it.
Any idea what I'm doing wrong?
Select the HTML element which need to remove. Use JavaScript remove() and removeChild() method to remove the element from the HTML document.
How about adding a new script tag to <head> with the script to (re)load? Something like below:
<script>
function load_js()
{
var head= document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0];
var script= document.createElement('script');
script.src= 'source_file.js';
head.appendChild(script);
}
load_js();
</script>
The main point is inserting a new script tag -- you can remove the old one without consequence. You may need to add a timestamp to the query string if you have caching issues.
Here's a method which is similar to Kelly's but will remove any pre-existing script with the same source, and uses jQuery.
<script>
function reload_js(src) {
$('script[src="' + src + '"]').remove();
$('<script>').attr('src', src).appendTo('head');
}
reload_js('source_file.js');
</script>
Note that the 'type' attribute is no longer needed for scripts as of HTML5. (http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/scripting-1.html#the-script-element)
Creating a new script tag and copying the contents of the existing script tag, and then adding it, works well.
var scriptTag = document.createElement('script');
scriptTag.innerText = "document.body.innerHTML += 'Here again ---<BR>';";
var head = document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0];
head.appendChild(scriptTag);
setInterval(function() {
head.removeChild(scriptTag);
var newScriptTag = document.createElement('script');
newScriptTag.innerText = scriptTag.innerText;
head.appendChild(newScriptTag);
scriptTag = newScriptTag;
}, 1000);
This won't work if you expect the script to change every time, which I believe is your case. You should follow Kelly's suggestion, just remove the old script tag (just to keep the DOM slim, it won't affect the outcome) and reinsert a new script tag with the same src, plus a cachebuster.
Small tweak to Luke's answer,
function reloadJs(src) {
src = $('script[src$="' + src + '"]').attr("src");
$('script[src$="' + src + '"]').remove();
$('<script/>').attr('src', src).appendTo('head');
}
and call it like,
reloadJs("myFile.js");
This will not have any path related issues.
Use this function to find all script elements containing some word and refresh them.
function forceReloadJS(srcUrlContains) {
$.each($('script:empty[src*="' + srcUrlContains + '"]'), function(index, el) {
var oldSrc = $(el).attr('src');
var t = +new Date();
var newSrc = oldSrc + '?' + t;
console.log(oldSrc, ' to ', newSrc);
$(el).remove();
$('<script/>').attr('src', newSrc).appendTo('head');
});
}
forceReloadJS('/libs/');
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/angularjs/1.2.23/angular.min.js"></script>
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