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javascriptiframe

Difference between document.referrer and window.parent.location.href


Here's the situation: there is a site, and it belongs to the client, so it's not on my domain, lets say client.com.

On this site there is an iframe, the source of this iframe is a simple js code, which loads another js (client.js) - this code is on my domain.

What I need to do is to get the exact url of the page where the iframe is. So now I'm trying to fugure out the difference between document.referrer and window.parent.location.href with no luck.

Both give me exactly what I need, but I can't realize what is more reliable? Is there a situation, where one will work and another won't?


Solution

  • document.referrer gives you the URI of the page that linked to the current page. This is a value that's available for all pages, not just frames.

    window.parent gives you the parent frame, and its location is its URI.

    If you want to find the URI of the parent frame, then use window.parent.location.