Cross-Domain iframe communication

Question

I have an iframe being created on a page, and the page\'s domain is being explicitly set to \'xyz.com\' but the iframe\'s domain is defaulting to \'dev.xyz.com\', which is t

Answer 1

After some research, I found this jQuery plugin that makes postMessage backwards-compatible with older browsers using various tricks.

Here is a quick example showing how to send the height of the iframe's body to the parent window:

On the host (parent) page:

    // executes when a message is received from the iframe, to adjust 
    // the iframe's height
    $.receiveMessage(
        function( event ){
            $( 'my_iframe' ).css({
                height: event.data
            });
    });
   // Please note this function could also verify event.origin and other security-related checks.

On the iframe page:

$(function(){

    // Sends a message to the parent window to tell it the height of the 
    // iframe's body        
    var target = parent.postMessage ? parent : (parent.document.postMessage ? parent.document : undefined);

    $.postMessage(
        $('body').outerHeight( true ) + 'px',
        '*',
        target
    );

});

I've tested this on Chrome 13+, Firefox 3.6+, IE7, 8 and 9 on XP and W7, safari on OSX and W7. ;)

Answer 2

As a addition to the reference to the Ben Alman plug in I thought I would post this working example. It ]rRelies on an iframe which has a source page containing jquery authentication & data query script which then passes the result to {other domain} parent window using the message plugin.

NB message plugin will break if using JQ v9 as JQV9 does not use "browser" referenced in the plugin

1st step: Add the plugin code to both sending and receiving docs:

http://benalman.com/projects/jquery-postmessage-plugin/

2nd step: Add this to sending doc:

   $.postMessage(
$(X).html(),    
'http://DOMAIN [PORT]/FOLDER/SUBFOLDER/RECIEVINGDOCNAME.XXX'   
 )  ;      

Where X can be a local var containing preformatted json array or other stuff, and the http url here is the address of the receiving document.

3rd step: Add this to receiving doc:

    $.receiveMessage(
    function(event){
        alert("event.data: "+event.data);
                $("#testresults").append('<h1>'+event.data+'<h1>');

    },          
    'http://DOMAIN.COM OR SOMETHING'

);

Where the http url is the DOMAIN of the sending document. Good in IE 8, 9, FF16, safari Windows (windows wait x V9 not tested yet), safari x mac thing.

The result is any item you want out of another domain page (that you have access to..).

Answer 3

Page inside iframe:

<script>
document.domain = document.domain;
</script>

It looks silly, but it works. See "What does document.domain = document.domain do?".