Name
Link.onclick — the handler invoked when a Link is clicked
Availability
JavaScript 1.0; enhanced in JavaScript 1.1
Synopsis
<a ... onclick="handler" ... > <area ... onclick="handler" ... >link.onclick
Description
The
onclick property of a Link object specifies an
event handler function that is invoked when the user clicks on the
link. The initial value of this property is a function that contains
the JavaScript statements specified by the onclick
attribute of the <a> or
<area> tag that defined the Link object.
When an event handler function is defined in this way by an HTML
attribute, it is executed in the scope of
element rather than in the scope of the
containing window.
The onclick event handler is invoked before the
browser follows the clicked hypertext link. This allows you to
dynamically set href, target,
and other properties of the link (using the this
keyword to refer to the clicked link). You may also use the methods
Window.alert( ), Window.confirm( ), and Window.prompt( ) from this event
handler.
In JavaScript 1.1, you may prevent the browser from following the
link by returning false. If you return
true, any other value, or nothing, the browser
follows the link as soon as onclick returns. You
might stop the browser from following a link if you use the
Window.confirm( ) method to ask the user if he
really wants to follow the link and the user chooses the Cancel button, for example. In general, if you want a link that performs some action but does not cause a new URL ...