“javascript：”html属性中的前缀

Question

I've noticed that some third party libraries use the "javascript:" prefix before a method, in an html variable. I am not an advocate of inline javascript, but am curious to know what it does?

Here is an example:

data-permalink="javascript:nRelate.xgeba('meta', 'property', 'og:url')0.content;"

I anticipate that the prefix is meant to allow the method call to execute and assign a value dynamically to the attribute, but this piece of test code tells me differently: http://codepen.io/anon/pen/HxzBa .

Answer 1

The library is probably using that data attribute verbatim as an href for an a tag. When placed thusly, the code will execute when the link is clicked.

Otherwise, javascript put as the value of data-* attributes will not auto-execute.