hashchange

The hashchange event is fired when the fragment identifier of the URL has changed (the part of the URL that follows the # symbol, including the # symbol).

Bubbles	Yes
Cancelable	No
Target objects	Window
Interface	HashChangeEvent
Default action	None

Properties

Property	Type	Description
target Read only	EventTarget	The browsing context (<code>window</code>).
type Read only	DOMString	The type of event.
bubbles Read only	Boolean	Whether the event normally bubbles or not
cancelable Read only	Boolean	Whether the event is cancellable or not?
oldURL Read only	string	The previous URL from which the window was navigated.
newURL Read only	string

There are several fallback scripts listed on this page. Basically those scripts check the location.hash at a regular interval. Here is a version that allows only one handler to be bound to the window.onhashchange property:

(function(window) {

  // exit if the browser implements that event
  if ( "onhashchange" in window.document.body ) { return; }

  var location = window.location,
    oldURL = location.href,
    oldHash = location.hash;

  // check the location hash on a 100ms interval
  setInterval(function() {
    var newURL = location.href,
      newHash = location.hash;

    // if the hash has changed and a handler has been bound...
    if ( newHash != oldHash && typeof window.onhashchange === "function" ) {
      // execute the handler
      window.onhashchange({
        type: "hashchange",
        oldURL: oldURL,
        newURL: newURL
      });

      oldURL = newURL;
      oldHash = newHash;
    }
  }, 100);

})(window);

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
WHATWG HTML Living Standard The definition of 'hashchange' in that specification.	Living Standard	Initial definition

Browser compatibility

[1] Support for the oldURL/newURL attributes added in Firefox 6.

[2] oldURL/newURL attributes are not supported.

See also

• popstate
• WindowEventHandlers.onhashchange