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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 theclickevent. - callback
- Callback function to call when the event is triggered on this target. The function will be called with no arguments, and with the
thisreference set to thewindowobject. - 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+.