Meaning of HTML <a> element with href="javascript:;" [duplicate]

Question

I occasionally see an HTML <a> element whose href attribute is a URI that has just javascript for the scheme, and an empty statement ; for the path.

• What is the purpose of this?

• Is it the same as href="javascript:void(0);"?

• Is it the same as having no href attribute at all?

• Is it the same as having no <a> element at all?

Update

The precise content that I am seeing is <a href="javascript:;" style="cursor: default;"></a>. So is this just a way of controlling the cursor graphic?

Answer 1

You can understand by below some steps:

<a onclick="foo()">Next Image</a>
<a href="#" onclick="foo()">Next Image</a>
<a href="javascript:foo()">Next Image</a>
<a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="foo()">Next Image</a>
<a href="#" onclick="foo(); return false;">Next Image</a>

method 1 usually won't change the mouse cursor to a "hand cursor", so maybe it is not as desirable in some cases.

method 2 seems to cause the page to shift to a new location sometimes on IE 6 and IE 7. (to top of page?)

method 3 ... should work... but is it an old school way and should be avoided for modern browsers?

method 4 should work well.void-the-void/ the author seems to suggest it may break sometimes and try never to use href="javascript:[anything]"

method 5 may work the best? according to the article above, that may be the best way as it doesn't use href="javascript:[something]" and the return false part will cause the href="#" not to be evaluted, so that's the best way? thanks very much!