Can I access a property from my manifest.json in my extension's JavaScript files?

Question

I'd like to refer to the version number as defined in my manifest.json in my extension's JavaScript files.

Is there any way to do this?

Answer 1

Since chrome 22 you should use chrome.runtime.getManifest() . See docs here.

So now it is as simple as:

var manifest = chrome.runtime.getManifest();
console.log(manifest.name);
console.log(manifest.version);

Answer 2

I think that this is what you're looking for http://www.martinsikora.com/accessing-manifest-json-in-a-google-chrome-extension

chrome.manifest = (function() {
    var manifestObject = false;
    var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();

    xhr.onreadystatechange = function() {
        if (xhr.readyState == 4) {
            manifestObject = JSON.parse(xhr.responseText);
        }
    };
    xhr.open("GET", chrome.extension.getURL('/manifest.json'), false);

    try {
        xhr.send();
    } catch(e) {
        console.log('Couldn\'t load manifest.json');
    }

    return manifestObject;

})();

And that's all. This short code snippet loads manifest object and put's it among other chrome.* APIs. So, now you can get any information you want:

// current version
chrome.manifest.version

// default locale
chrome.manifest.default_locale