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javascripthtmlcharacter-encodingmeta-tags

Preserve charset attribute of meta tag in HTML Blob?

I am generating a client-side HTML redirect like this:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <title>Déjà vu - Wikipedia</title>
  <script type='text/javascript'>
  document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function () {
var newHTML = document.createElement('html');
var newHead = document.createElement('head');
var newMeta = document.createElement('meta');
var newTitle = document.createElement('title');
newTitle.text = "Déjà vu - Wikipedia";
newMeta.httpEquiv = "refresh";
newMeta.charset = "utf-8";
newMeta.content = "30;url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9j%C3%A0_vu";
var newBody = document.createElement('body');
var newPar = document.createElement('p');
var newText = document.createTextNode('Loading Déjà vu - Wikipedia...');
newPar.appendChild(newText);
newBody.appendChild(newPar);
newHead.appendChild(newMeta);
newHead.appendChild(newTitle);
newHTML.append(newHead);
newHTML.append(newBody);
var tempAnchor = window.document.createElement('a');
HTMLBlob = new Blob([newHTML.outerHTML], {type: 'text/html; charset=UTF-8'});
tempAnchor.href = window.URL.createObjectURL(HTMLBlob);
tempAnchor.download = "example-redirect.html"
tempAnchor.style.display = 'none';
document.body.appendChild(tempAnchor);
tempAnchor.click();
document.body.removeChild(tempAnchor);

  });
  </script>
  </head>
  <body>
  </body>
</html>

However, I am losing the charset meta attribute when I do so. The output looks like this:

<html><head><meta http-equiv="refresh" content="30;url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9j%C3%A0_vu"><title>Déjà vu - Wikipedia</title></head><body><p>Loading Déjà vu - Wikipedia...</p></body></html>

This means that my browser is not sure what encoding to use, and does not display the accents correctly.

Loading Déjà vu - Wikipedia...

This, on the other hand, properly shows the accents:

<html><head><meta http-equiv="refresh" charset="utf-8" content="30;url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9j%C3%A0_vu"><title>Déjà vu - Wikipedia</title></head><body><p>Loading Déjà vu - Wikipedia...</p></body></html>

Loading Déjà vu - Wikipedia...

I've reduced it down as minimal example as I can, and it still occurs.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">

<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <title>title</title>
  <script type='text/javascript'>
    document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function() {
      var newHTML = document.createElement('html');
      var newHead = document.createElement('head');
      var newMeta = document.createElement('meta');
      newMeta.charset = "utf-8";
      newHead.appendChild(newMeta);
      newHTML.append(newHead);
      var tempAnchor = window.document.createElement('a');
      HTMLBlob = new Blob([newHTML.outerHTML], {
        type: 'text/html; charset=UTF-8'
      });
      tempAnchor.href = window.URL.createObjectURL(HTMLBlob);
      tempAnchor.download = "minimal-output.html"
      tempAnchor.style.display = 'none';
      document.body.appendChild(tempAnchor);
      tempAnchor.click();
      document.body.removeChild(tempAnchor);

    });
  </script>
</head>

<body>
</body>

</html>

Here is the output:

<html><head><meta></head></html>

This occurs in both Firefox 63.0 and Chromium 70.0. Here is a link to the Git repo:

https://github.com/nbeaver/stackoverflow_question_2018-11-07

How can I preserve the charset attribute of an HTML blob?

Solution

  • HTML <meta> elements currently don't have a dedicated DOM interface for setting the charset attribute. See the specification: https://www.w3.org/TR/html5/document-metadata.html#the-meta-element.

    newMeta.charset = "utf-8"; only adds your own arbitrary charset property to the newMeta JavaScript object. This arbitrary property has no effect on the charset HTML attribute of the <meta> element.

    You need to set the charset attribute like this: newMeta.setAttribute("charset", "utf-8");