async="async" attribute of a <script> tag in html, What does it mean?
JavascriptHtmlJavascript Problem Overview
async="async"
attribute of a <script>
tag in HTML, What does it mean?
<script async="async" src="...."></script>
Can be see used here for example
Javascript Solutions
Solution 1 - Javascript
If the async attribute is set on an external script (one with src=), browsers that support it will download that script in the background without blocking the rest of the content on the page. The script will execute whenever it is finished downloading.
http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html#attr-script-async
As I mentioned in a comment, setting async=true, async=false or async=anything all mean the same thing. They enable the async behavior. The only way to make a script non-async is to completely omit the attribute.
http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html#boolean-attributes
Solution 2 - Javascript
In XHTML it is needed to consequently note attributes as attributes and their values whereas HTML does not. I like the conformity of that principle so I always use it in the form of:
async="async"
This way I can serve my documents as application/xhtml+xml.
If this is not of any interest for you because you are of the opinion that serving your document as text/html is good enough, then you can always use:
async
Solution 3 - Javascript
The HTML WHATWG specification contains the following explanation:
> For classic scripts, if the async
attribute is present, then the
> classic script will be fetched in parallel to parsing and evaluated as
> soon as it is available (potentially before parsing completes). If the
> async
attribute is not present but the defer
attribute is present,
> then the classic script will be fetched in parallel and evaluated when
> the page has finished parsing. If neither attribute is present, then
> the script is fetched and evaluated immediately, blocking parsing
> until these are both complete.
>
> For module scripts, if the async
attribute is present, then the module
> script and all its dependencies will be fetched in parallel to
> parsing, and the module script will be evaluated as soon as it is
> available (potentially before parsing completes). Otherwise, the
> module script and its dependencies will be fetched in parallel to
> parsing and evaluated when the page has finished parsing. (The defer
> attribute has no effect on module scripts.)
>
> This is all summarized in the following schematic diagram:
>The exact processing details for these attributes are, for mostly historical reasons, somewhat non-trivial, involving a number of aspects of HTML. The implementation requirements are therefore by necessity scattered throughout the specification. The algorithms [described in the HTML specification] describe the core of this processing, but these algorithms reference and are referenced by the parsing rules for script start and end tags in HTML, in foreign content, and in XML, the rules for the document.write() method, the handling of scripting, etc.
> The defer
attribute may be specified even if the async
attribute is specified, to cause legacy Web browsers that only support defer
(and not async
) to fall back to the defer
behavior instead of the blocking behavior that is the default.
Solution 4 - Javascript
It simply means
- Download the External Script asyncronously ( or in parallel ) without blocking the html parsing.
- The Script once downloaded will be Executed Immediately blocking the html parsing.
Here's a nice illustration.
Note : This attribute works only for the external scripts ( the one's with the src attribute ) and not inline scripts.
Solution 5 - Javascript
Seems it doesn't need to be async=async
either, but just async
From google:
> A second technique is to use the
Solution 6 - Javascript
Just async in enough.
You may try both and then measure the difference in page speed. Like crictime uses single substance for that.