203093 - Move ActiveXObject --> NSActiveXObject -> GeckActiveXObject

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Core :: XPConnect, defect)

Description

[Arun Ranganathan]

This is with reference to bug 203091 .

Currently, we expose certain COM properties (and programmatic component
instantiation) to the ActiveXObject object.  We should instead use
NSActiveXObject since we don't purport full ActiveX support and we don't want
builds with this feature turned ON to be confused for IE.

Comment 1

[David Bradley]

Attachment: Renames ActiveXObject to NSActiveXObject

Also consolidates the location of the strings as well.

Comment 2

[David Bradley]

Comment on attachment 121531 [details] [diff] [review]
Renames ActiveXObject to NSActiveXObject

Simple rename with a bit of cleanup to consolidate the strings.

Comment 3

[Alec Flett]

Comment on attachment 121531 [details] [diff] [review]
Renames ActiveXObject to NSActiveXObject

sr=alecf

Comment 4

[Adam Lock]

Comment on attachment 121531 [details] [diff] [review]
Renames ActiveXObject to NSActiveXObject

I'm not sure I see the point of renaming this object. We don't purport to offer
full support, yet renaming ActiveXObject is going to make the situation even
worse.

I know where the idea came from but I was under the impression that
NSActiveXObject was going to be an additional distinct object with methods to
test the availability of cids etc. And ActiveXObject was going to be left the
way it was.

Comment 5

[David Bradley]

The reasoning given was that the presence of ActiveXObject might trip up some
sniffing algorithms into thinking we're IE. I'm not a strong advocate of doing
this, so I'll let others argue for it. My reservation is that this creates
another deviation in content for people to deal with, but I got the impression
that it wouldn't be that much of a problem for content authors.

Comment 6

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

We have seen in the wild quite a bit. For example:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=window.ActiveXObject&btnG=Google+Search

if (window.ActiveXObject){
var xmlDoc = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM");
xmlDoc.async=false; //Enforce download of XML file first. IE only.
}
else if (document.implementation && document.implementation.createDocument)
{
var xmlDoc= document.implementation.createDocument("","doc",null);
}
xmlDoc.load("myfile.xml");

If we support window.ActiveXObject then we will break on any page that contains
logic like this. Then we will hear from everyone how broken our XML support is.
This is just for one particular ActiveX object but the situation is similar for
others as well.

Up until this point we have not supported ActiveXObject. By changing that you
will see us travel down code paths in pages we have not seen before.

Comment 7

[Adam Lock]

Comment on attachment 121531 [details] [diff] [review]
Renames ActiveXObject to NSActiveXObject

r=adamlock

Comment 8

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

*** Bug 203244 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 9

[David Bradley]

Comment on attachment 121531 [details] [diff] [review]
Renames ActiveXObject to NSActiveXObject

Looking for 1.4b approval. This is a simple low risk renaming of strings that
will prevent some sites confusing us for IE especially when testing for XML
parsers.

Comment 10

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

Comment on attachment 121531 [details] [diff] [review]
Renames ActiveXObject to NSActiveXObject

a=sspitzer

Comment 11

[David Bradley]

Patch checked in

Comment 12

[Phil Schwartau]

Checkin verified -

Comment 13

[David Bradley]

Reopening this bug so that we can rename it to GeckActiveXObject.

Comment 14

[David Bradley]

Attachment: -> GeckActiveXObject

Comment 15

[David Bradley]

Comment on attachment 122215 [details] [diff] [review]
-> GeckActiveXObject

Simple one line string replacement NSActiveXObject -> GeckActiveXObject looking
for a quick r/sr

Comment 16

[Alec Flett]

Comment on attachment 122215 [details] [diff] [review]
-> GeckActiveXObject

sr=alecf

Comment 17

[David Bradley]

Comment on attachment 122215 [details] [diff] [review]
-> GeckActiveXObject

Looking for 1.4b approval, this is a very simple one line string constant
change to rename to GeckActiveXObject

Comment 18

[(not reading, please use [e-mail] instead)]

Comment on attachment 122215 [details] [diff] [review]
-> GeckActiveXObject

a=sspitzer

Comment 19

[David Bradley]

Patch checked in. (forgot to mark this fixed, patch went in around midnight last
night)

Comment 20

[Phil Schwartau]

Checkin Verified -