Using HTML5 custom data attributes to store data on HTML elements

When writing JavaScripts for a web page, since the beginning of time, web developers have had the need to store extra data for HTML elements. I remember reading about custom data attributes in HTML5 some time ago, and recently Remy reminded me about them – they are here to save us!

Background

Before, we used to either have invalid attributes with various values, extend/misuse existing attributes or just go crazy with class names containing data. But now with custom data attributes in HTML5, that is all history!

Using custom data attributes

It is actually as easy as it gets: make up any attribute name you want, such as “type”, “value” or similar, prepend “data-” to that value and you’re good to go! In this example we have made up two custom attributes for us named data-type and data-value:

	<strong data-type="element" data-value="I am da law!">
		Custom data attributes
	</strong>

This is completely valid HTML5 code, as long as you use the HTML5 doctype:

	<!DOCTYPE html>

Accessing custom data attributes via JavaScript

Then, naturally, you want to access them with JavaScript, and just do it like any other attribute:

	var type = document.getElementById("elm-name").getAttribute("data-type");

Pretty simple, right? And the best thing, this works in virtually all web browser known to man!

Using dataset

In the HTML5 specification, there is also a mention to use a certain dataset property on elements and from there only read out custom data attribute values:

	var type = document.getElementById("elm-name").dataset.type;

However, currently this is not implemented in any web browser.

Demos

A have put together a simple demo of using HTML5 custom data attributes as a part of my HTML5 – Information and samples for HTML5 and related APIs web site.

11 Comments

  • Andy L says:

    Very useful for my current project!

    Thank you for reminding me of this.

  • So the only thing that's new and useful is the convention to add the "data-" prefix to the attribute names?

  • Robert Nyman says:

    Dan,

    Honored to have you comment here!
    I agree that there’s certainly a risk for things like this getting abused (but the same goes for a number of things in HTML5, especially the loose HTML syntax demands).

    But, and I know it sounds like a clichΓ©, just because you can do bad doesn’t mean you have to.

    I like to have it there in the toolbox for cases where it will really help, but will refrain from it as long as possible.

  • mdmadph says:

    I like this — I used to avoid doing this all the time back in the day because it would make my HTML not validate. πŸ˜› Have always wanted/needed to do this!

  • Andreas says:

    I think you forgot one important topic. WHY should anyone "store" (i mean not store as in permanent store but I don't know any better word) in the DOM? Specially now when we have local storage in html5?

  • Robert Nyman says:

    Andy L,

    You're welcome!

    Martin,

    What to me is extremely useful is that I can an attribute with any name, e.g. data-awesome, and have data in it and that all of this is valid HTML!

    In the future, there is bound to be iteration possibilities and methods with the upcoming dataset.

    mdmadph,

    Go ahead then! πŸ™‚

    Andreas,

    I think that is quite easy: people have done this for 10 years now, extending elements, saving intermediate values etc etc. For instance, the Dojo library has some features dependent on custom (and invalid) attributes.

    Sure, localStorage and similar is great, but this is for other operations where you might need to extend the HTML directly and other cases.

  • Andreas says:

    I know people are doing it, doesn't make it right though πŸ™‚

  • Robert Nyman says:

    Andreas,

    πŸ™‚

    Well, I think it can be useful at least.

  • Dan Webb says:

    I can't actually think of many legitimate uses for custom attributes. I just seems to me that they will get abused by developers adding very situation specific and unsemantic markup just to prop up there scripts when really in most situations there's a better way to approach the problem. Initially I liked the idea for adding microformat style data to documents but it appears that there's a microdata spec that covers that. Ranted about data attributes here.

  • Bramus! says:

    Sites not using HTML5 can fall back on a trick using class names, made easy to use via a little jQuery plugin I wrote (which was based on a Prototype version, linked to from within my post) πŸ˜‰

  • Robert Nyman says:

    Bramus!

    Thanks for the tip!

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