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EventTarget.attachEvent()

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Non-standard
This feature is non-standard and is not on a standards track. Do not use it on production sites facing the Web: it will not work for every user. There may also be large incompatibilities between implementations and the behavior may change in the future.

Summary

This is a proprietary Microsoft Internet Explorer alternative to the standard EventTarget.addEventListener() method.

Syntax

attached = target.attachEvent(eventNameWithOn, callback)
target
The DOM element to listen for the event on
eventNameWithOn
The name of the event to listen for, prefixed with "on", as if it were an event handler attribute. For example, you would use "onclick" to listen for the click event.
callback
Callback function to call when the event is triggered on this target. The function will be called with no arguments, and with the this reference set to the window object.
attached
Boolean indicating whether the event handler was successfully attached.

Specification

Not part of any specification.

Microsoft has a description on MSDN.

Browser compatibility

Feature Chrome Firefox (Gecko) Internet Explorer Opera Safari (WebKit)
Basic support No support No support 6 thru 10 [1] ? No support
Feature Android Firefox Mobile (Gecko) IE Phone Opera Mobile Safari Mobile
Basic support No support No support ? ? No support

[1]: attachEvent() is no longer supported in IE11+. EventTarget.addEventListener() is supported in IE9+.

See also

Document Tags and Contributors

 Contributors to this page: cvrebert, rolfedh
 Last updated by: cvrebert,