使用HTML5包含JavaScript的最小字符<script> tag

Question

Now that the type attribute of the <script> tag can be omitted in HTML5, is this the fewest number of characters required to include external JavaScript on a page?

<script src="URL"></script>

Can anyone optimise it any more than this - what about if a framework such as jQuery was already loaded, is there an even shorter way?

Answer 1

If you don't care about the JavaScript being able to reach out and access page content, then

<img src="URL.svg">

where the URL points to an SVG image that uses SVG scripting would allow you to load a script and you could call functions defined in it by sending events to the SVG image to trigger event handlers.

You may be able to get around that restriction by using an SVG served from the same origin but I believe the security consequences of same-origin access for SVG are poorly understood so spec and browser writers are treading cautiously.

Answer 2

You could omit the quotes for the attribute :

<script src=URL></script>

As well, with XHTML5 the following should work:

<script src="URL" />

Answer 3

Since you asked about jQuery, you can use $.getScript() :

$.getScript("f.js");

Of course this assumes your code has already been wrapped, or loaded in via in <script> tags. To be honest, there really isn't much benefit in trying to shave off a few more bytes in this area. It's not like referencing scripts requires a great deal of verbosity anyway.

Keep your code readable, and don't deviate too far from standards and accepted conventions.

Answer 4

[from my comments]

Supposing you already handled script aggregation using for example the excellent Google Closure Compiler and you don't want to use the heavy js loading libraries, a simple optimization is this :

<script src=a></script>

(no quote, no ".js", yes that's silly)

Of course, you can also remove spaces and CR before and after this part.