Global variable in Web worker

41
votes

I am using this Web worker which has a Global variable declared in it. Can I access the same (Global variable in worker 1) in the newly spawned web worker(worker 2)?

When I've tried using jQuery in web worker, I get error "window is not defined". Is there any way to use jQuery in a Web Worker?

importScripts('jquery-latest.js');

function fetch_ajax(url) {
  $.ajax({
    type: 'GET', 
    url: url,
    success: function(response) {
    postMessage(response);  


    }
  });
}

fetch_ajax('test.txt');
2
javascriptweb-worker
You seem to have asked two questions here. StackOverflow questions should be kept separate. I'm pretty sure the jQuery question is already answered, so it's probably best just to remove that part from your question. - Michael Scheper

2 Answers

66
votes

Web Workers don't have a window object.

To access global state, use self instead, code that will work on both the main thread and the worker thread.

But note that you still won't be able to access or manipulate the parent DOM (e.g. get window.jQuery via self.jQuery).

While the main thread window self points to the Window object, in worker threads self points to a separate WorkerGlobalScope object.

21
votes

Based on @buley tip, I did it:

var window = self;

importScripts(/* dependencies here */);

/* my code */

In my case I was trying to use the ES6-Promise lib: https://github.com/jakearchibald/es6-promise#readme