document.createElement(“script”) synchronously

Question

Is it possible to call in a .js file synchronously and then use it immediately afterward?

Answer 1

I had the following problem(s) with the existing answers to this question (and variations of this question on other stackoverflow threads):

• None of the loaded code was debuggable
• Many of the solutions required callbacks to know when loading was finished instead of truly blocking, meaning I would get execution errors from immediately calling loaded (ie loading) code.

Or, slightly more accurately:

• None of the loaded code was debuggable (except from the HTML script tag block, if and only if the solution added a script elements to the dom, and never ever as individual viewable scripts.) => Given how many scripts I have to load (and debug), this was unacceptable.
• Solutions using 'onreadystatechange' or 'onload' events failed to block, which was a big problem since the code originally loaded dynamic scripts synchronously using 'require([filename, 'dojo/domReady']);' and I was stripping out dojo.

My final solution, which loads the script before returning, AND has all scripts properly accessible in the debugger (for Chrome at least) is as follows:

WARNING: The following code should PROBABLY be used only in 'development' mode. (For 'release' mode I recommend prepackaging and minification WITHOUT dynamic script loading, or at least without eval).

//Code User TODO: you must create and set your own 'noEval' variable

require = function require(inFileName)
{
    var aRequest
        ,aScript
        ,aScriptSource
        ;

    //setup the full relative filename
    inFileName = 
        window.location.protocol + '//'
        + window.location.host + '/'
        + inFileName;

    //synchronously get the code
    aRequest = new XMLHttpRequest();
    aRequest.open('GET', inFileName, false);
    aRequest.send();

    //set the returned script text while adding special comment to auto include in debugger source listing:
    aScriptSource = aRequest.responseText + '\n////# sourceURL=' + inFileName + '\n';

    if(noEval)//<== **TODO: Provide + set condition variable yourself!!!!**
    {
        //create a dom element to hold the code
        aScript = document.createElement('script');
        aScript.type = 'text/javascript';

        //set the script tag text, including the debugger id at the end!!
        aScript.text = aScriptSource;

        //append the code to the dom
        document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0].appendChild(aScript);
    }
    else
    {
        eval(aScriptSource);
    }
};