157084 - swchamber.co.uk - JavaScript console reports missing semicolon in comment field

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Tech Evangelism Graveyard :: English Other, defect)

Description

[Rob Bracken]

From Bugzilla Helper:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; WinNT4.0; en-US; rv:1.0.0) Gecko/20020530
BuildID:    2002053012

The javascript in the page at http://www.swchamber.co.uk doesn't execute. The
javascript console reports the following error:

Error: missing ; before statement
Source File: http://www.swchamber.co.uk/
Line: 159, Column: 6
Source Code:
 hide JavaScript from non-JavaScript browsers

This causes the page to display a message that the browser doesn't support W3C
web standards (!!)

I've tried the following:
1. Add a <!DOCTYPE line (as described on the Bugzilla page) - get same result.
2. In the 2nd SCRIPT block, move the comment to the same line as the <!-- tag.
Java console now doesn't report an error, but the page still doesn't display.

It works OK with IE (v. 5.00.2919.6307IS) on NT4.0.
It doesn't work with Netscape 4.7 on a Mac.

I complained to the web designers - this is what they said:

=============================================================
Thanks for your note. The South West Chamber site is aimed at businesses
throughout the South West and is made specifically to deal with main stream
browsers. It is also designed to comply with W3 standards. Whilst not
suggesting that Mozilla isnt W3 compliant it currently represents a 
proportion of 1.1% of all web browsers as outlined in the table below. May I
suggest you view in IE 5+ for best results.

Regards.

Browser Type Market Share (%)
MS IE 5.x 24.9
MS IE 4.x 44.7
MS IE 3.x 3.6
NN 4.x 22.0
NN 3.x 2.3
MS Web TV 1.4
Other 1.1
=================================================================

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.Open page http://www.swchamber.co.uk
2.
3.

Actual Results:  Page displayed a message:
Sorry
your browser will not work with this web site because your browser does not
support accepted web standards.

Expected Results:  Run the Javascript & displayed the page correctly.

OS - Win NT4.0 SP6
Using "Modern" theme
Javascript settings:
Enabled for Navigator, disabled for Mail & Newsgroups
"Allow webpages to:" - All checked except "Change status bar text"
Cookies enabled for originating web site only
Maximum lifetime limited to current session

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

The page has the following code:

<script language="JavaScript">
<!-- hide JavaScript from non-JavaScript browsers

the "hide JavaScript from non-JavaScript browsers" is treated as JS code by
Mozilla, and it should indeed be, according to everything I understand.

As you may imagine, this is not very valid JS code.

Confirming to decide whether we want to treat the entire line following "<!--"
as not part of the script or whether we want to evangelize the site.

Just adding a "//" before the "hide" will fix this problem, as a note.

Comment 2

[Steven Cole]

According to HTML 4.01, section 18.3.2 "Hiding script data from user agents", 

The JavaScript engine allows the string "<!--" to occur at the start of a SCRIPT
element, and ignores further characters until the end of the line.

So if Mozilla doesn't handle that, it's a standards violation.

--scole

Comment 3

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Attachment: testcase

Not all is so simple; we pass this testcase.

Investigating the problem with the site again.

Comment 4

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Oh, I am a fool.  The JS error is from line _159_ of the file.  The script there is:

<script language="JavaScript">
<!--



 hide JavaScript from non-JavaScript browsers
//-->
</script>

So the error is correct and irrelevant to the problem.

The problem is the following browser-sniffing code on the site:

    // Netscape6 is mozilla/5 + Netscape6/6.0!!!
    // Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; m18) Gecko/20001108 Netscape6/6.0
    var nav6Pos = agt.indexOf('netscape6');
    if (nav6Pos !=-1) {
       is_minor = parseFloat(agt.substring(nav6Pos+10))
       is_major = parseInt(is_minor)
    }

(this will _not_ set is_minor and is_major in Mozilla, since it explicitly looks
for Netscape6. It will break in Netscape7 too).

Followed by:

    var is_nav6   = (is_nav && is_major==6);    // new 010118 mhp
    var is_nav6up = (is_nav && is_minor >= 6) // new 010118 mhp

Followed by:

if (is_ie4up || is_nav6up || is_opera6up) {window.location=('index.asp');}

So in Mozilla that window.location call is simply never executed because the
site has arbitrarily decided that we don't support javascript or something.

Over to evangelism.  The site is already using object sniffing for
getElementById, so I don't know why they're bothering with this useragent
sniffing.. If they _do_ want to do it, they should sniff for "Gecko", not
"Netscape6".

Rob, further mail from you to them pointing out the situation may be helpful;
mention the fact that you are using a Netscape 7.0 beta (which does not have
"netscape6" in the useragent) and the site will not let you in.  ;)  Also
mention that any browser that has "Gecko" in the useragent will be at least as
good as Netscape 6.0 for their purposes (the ones that were not and had Gecko in
the useragent are so horribly broken, no one really uses them).

Comment 5

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

Oh, as a note, I loaded index.asp and browsed it for a bit... things seemed to
work perfectly fine there.

Comment 6

[Rob Bracken]

I've passed on your comments. I'll let you know what they say.
(Rob)

Comment 7

[Stefan [:stefanh]]

Hmm, the site still doesn't work...

Comment 8

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

tech evang june 2003 reorg

Comment 9

[Rob Bracken]

I just tried it - for whatever reason it works OK now. Perhaps they took notice?

(Rob Bracken)

Comment 10

[Pascal Chevrel (relman team) -> :pascalc]

WFM