why browser can not parse the following code?

Question

<script type='text/javascript'>

    function cool()
    {
        var innerHtml = "<script></script>";//simply for demostration
        $("body").append(innerHtml);
    }
 </script>

The above will confuse browsers and will not render correctly before the cool function is even invoked. Why?

Because browsers will choke on the `` inside the JavaScript string, The HTML parser does not understand JavaScript, and will only see this token and will close the script block. — Felix Kling, Nov 08 '11 at 18:30
It's quite confusing as to what you're doing here. Can you please explain your problem more clearly, with more detail? — Bojangles, Nov 08 '11 at 18:30
Related: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/236073/why-split-the-script-tag-when-writing-it-with-document-write — Doozer Blake, Nov 08 '11 at 18:31

Quentin · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-08T18:42:51.230

</script> will end a script element, so your script terminates in the middle of a string literal.

Browsers are not "confused", the HTML is simply wrong (and invalid … except in XHTML … but that only counts if you are using application/xhtml+xml … and then you get a different set of issues), which leads to the JavaScript being wrong.

Represent the sequence </ as <\/ in JS strings when you are using inline JS (as per the example in section 18.2.4 of the HTML 4.01 Recommendation).

why browser can not parse the following code?

1 Answers1