Section 25.168. IFrame: an iframe in an HTML document

25.168. IFrame: an <iframe> in an HTML document

DOM Level 2 HTML: Node Element HTMLElement IFrame

25.168.1. Properties

As explained in the following Description, iframe elements can be accessed as IFrame objects or as Window objects. When accessed as IFrame objects, they inherit properties from HTMLElement and define the additional properties below:

Document contentDocument

The document that holds the content of the <iframe>.

String src

The URL from which the iframe's content was loaded. Setting this property causes the iframe to load a new document. This property simply mirrors the src attribute of the HTML <iframe> tag.

In addition to these properties, the IFrame object also defines the following properties, which correspond directly to HTML attributes of the <iframe> tag:

Property	Attribute	Description
deprecated String align	align	Alignment with respect to inline content
String frameBorder	frameborder	Set to "0" for borderless frames
String height	height	Height of the viewport in pixels or percent
String longDesc	longdesc	The URL of a frame description
String marginHeight	marginheight	Top and bottom frame margin, in pixels
String marginWidth	marginwidth	Left and right frame margin, in pixels
String name	name	The name of the frame, for DOM Level 0 lookup and form and link targets
String scrolling	scrolling	Frame scroll policy: "auto", "yes", or "no"
String width	width	Width of the viewport in pixels or percent

25.168.2. Description

Except for small differences in their HTML attributes, <iframe> elements behave very much like <frame> elements in client-side JavaScript. <iframe> elements become part of the frames[] array of the containing window. When accessed through that array, they are represented by Window objects, and the properties listed earlier do not apply.

When an <iframe> element is accessed as a document element by ID or tag name, it is represented by an IFrame object, with the properties shown previously. Use src to query or set the URL of the <iframe>, and use contentDocument to access the contents of the iframe. Be aware, however, that the same-origin policy (see Section 13.8.2) may prevent access to the contentDocument.

25.168.3. See Also

Frame, Window; Chapter 14