iframe contentWindow not working

Question

<script>
function getDef() {
    document.getElementById("defCanvas").innerHTML=document.getElementById("invisibleDefFrame").contentWindow.document.getElementsByClassName("def-content")[0].innerText;
}
</script>
<button onclick="getDef();">Get Definition</button>
<iframe style="display:none;" id="invisibleDefFrame" src="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/amalgamation?s=t"></iframe>
<p id="defCanvas"></p>

This is my code for a program that should return the definition of a word, but instead does nothing. What should I do to fix it? Thanks.

Could you expand on "does nothing"? What are you expecting to happen? — stef, Oct 03 '15 at 15:12

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:58

Because of cross-domain security, I suspect that you are not able to access the HTML of that iframe from within your own page via Javascript.

See this previous answer.

I believe that the only way to do what you are trying to do - scrape results from another website and display them on your own - is to make the request via your own web server, parse the results and present it to the user.

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:14

0

You can't access the iframe this way!

You will get an Uncaught SecurityError: Blocked a frame with origin

Read this detailed answer

edited May 23 '17 at 12:14

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answered Oct 03 '15 at 15:24

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iframe contentWindow not working

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