tldr: Why does ('placeholder' in inputElemnt) equal true in IE8 despite no native support for the placeholder attribute? Isn't (attribute in element) a good way to check for native support? The Javascript library Modernizer use it.

Long: I have a small Jquery plugin called Defaultvalue ( / ). I have a small Jquery plugin called Placeholder ( .placeholder.js ). It's basically a fallback for the HTML5 placeholder attribute.

In a recent updated I added these three lines of code. Hoping that Defaultvalue wouldn't run if the browser had native support for the placeholder attribute.

if('placeholder' in this){
    // this is an input-element
    return false;
}

It seems to work in most browsers except IE8 and IE7. For some reason it finds the key 'placeholder' in this, but there isn't, I think, any support for the placeholder attribute in IE7/IE8.

My code was inspired by this code in the Javascript library Modernizer ( / ).

(function(props) {
    for (var i = 0, len = props.length; i < len; i++) {
        attrs[ props[i] ] = !!(props[i] in inputElem);
    }
    return attrs;
})('autocomplete autofocus list placeholder max min multiple pattern required step'.split(' '));

What am I missing?

tldr: Why does ('placeholder' in inputElemnt) equal true in IE8 despite no native support for the placeholder attribute? Isn't (attribute in element) a good way to check for native support? The Javascript library Modernizer use it.

Long: I have a small Jquery plugin called Defaultvalue ( http://unwrongest.com/projects/defaultvalue/ ). I have a small Jquery plugin called Placeholder ( https://github.com/janjarfalk/jquery.placeholder.js ). It's basically a fallback for the HTML5 placeholder attribute.

In a recent updated I added these three lines of code. Hoping that Defaultvalue wouldn't run if the browser had native support for the placeholder attribute.

if('placeholder' in this){
    // this is an input-element
    return false;
}

It seems to work in most browsers except IE8 and IE7. For some reason it finds the key 'placeholder' in this, but there isn't, I think, any support for the placeholder attribute in IE7/IE8.

My code was inspired by this code in the Javascript library Modernizer ( http://www.modernizr.com/ ).

(function(props) {
    for (var i = 0, len = props.length; i < len; i++) {
        attrs[ props[i] ] = !!(props[i] in inputElem);
    }
    return attrs;
})('autocomplete autofocus list placeholder max min multiple pattern required step'.split(' '));

What am I missing?

• javascript
• placeholder

• 3 IE is clueless about attributes and properties, it thinks they are the same thing (as does jQuery). Non-standard attributes are added as "expando" properties. Using for..in to iterate over the properties of host objects is not a good idea. IE < 9 doesn't support hasAttribute, so that won't work either. – RobG Commented Apr 4, 2011 at 8:46
• 1 The placeholder attribute is not implemented in IE9 either... – Šime Vidas Commented Apr 4, 2011 at 12:15

2 Answers 2

Creating a new raw input element solved my problem.

var nativePlaceholderSupport = (function() {
    var i = document.createElement('input');
    return i.placeholder !== undefined;
})();

if(nativePlaceholderSupport){
    return false;
}

var nativePlaceholderSupport = (function(){
    var i = document.createElement('input');
    return ('placeholder' in i);
})();

if(nativePlaceholderSupport){
    return false;
}

Thanks RobG, you led me to it.

It doesn't. It equals to false in both IE9 and IE8.

Live demo: http://jsfiddle.net/JVSgx/