1<h1 align="center">
2    <img width="100" height="100" src="logo.svg" alt=""><br>
3    jsdom
4</h1>
5
6jsdom is a pure-JavaScript implementation of many web standards, notably the WHATWG [DOM](https://dom.spec.whatwg.org/) and [HTML](https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/) Standards, for use with Node.js. In general, the goal of the project is to emulate enough of a subset of a web browser to be useful for testing and scraping real-world web applications.
7
8The latest versions of jsdom require Node.js v8 or newer. (Versions of jsdom below v12 still work with Node.js v6, but are unsupported.)
9
10## Basic usage
11
12```js
13const jsdom = require("jsdom");
14const { JSDOM } = jsdom;
15```
16
17To use jsdom, you will primarily use the `JSDOM` constructor, which is a named export of the jsdom main module. Pass the constructor a string. You will get back a `JSDOM` object, which has a number of useful properties, notably `window`:
18
19```js
20const dom = new JSDOM(`<!DOCTYPE html><p>Hello world</p>`);
21console.log(dom.window.document.querySelector("p").textContent); // "Hello world"
22```
23
24(Note that jsdom will parse the HTML you pass it just like a browser does, including implied `<html>`, `<head>`, and `<body>` tags.)
25
26The resulting object is an instance of the `JSDOM` class, which contains a number of useful properties and methods besides `window`. In general it can be used to act on the jsdom from the "outside," doing things that are not possible with the normal DOM APIs. For simple cases, where you don't need any of this functionality, we recommend a coding pattern like
27
28```js
29const { window } = new JSDOM(`...`);
30// or even
31const { document } = (new JSDOM(`...`)).window;
32```
33
34Full documentation on everything you can do with the `JSDOM` class is below, in the section "`JSDOM` Object API".
35
36## Customizing jsdom
37
38The `JSDOM` constructor accepts a second parameter which can be used to customize your jsdom in the following ways.
39
40### Simple options
41
42```js
43const dom = new JSDOM(``, {
44  url: "https://example.org/",
45  referrer: "https://example.com/",
46  contentType: "text/html",
47  includeNodeLocations: true,
48  storageQuota: 10000000
49});
50```
51
52- `url` sets the value returned by `window.location`, `document.URL`, and `document.documentURI`, and affects things like resolution of relative URLs within the document and the same-origin restrictions and referrer used while fetching subresources. It defaults to `"about:blank"`.
53- `referrer` just affects the value read from `document.referrer`. It defaults to no referrer (which reflects as the empty string).
54- `contentType` affects the value read from `document.contentType`, and how the document is parsed: as HTML or as XML. Values that are not `"text/html"` or an [XML mime type](https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/infrastructure.html#xml-mime-type) will throw. It defaults to `"text/html"`.
55- `includeNodeLocations` preserves the location info produced by the HTML parser, allowing you to retrieve it with the `nodeLocation()` method (described below). It also ensures that line numbers reported in exception stack traces for code running inside `<script>` elements are correct. It defaults to `false` to give the best performance, and cannot be used with an XML content type since our XML parser does not support location info.
56- `storageQuota` is the maximum size in code units for the separate storage areas used by `localStorage` and `sessionStorage`. Attempts to store data larger than this limit will cause a `DOMException` to be thrown. By default, it is set to 5,000,000 code units per origin, as inspired by the HTML specification.
57
58Note that both `url` and `referrer` are canonicalized before they're used, so e.g. if you pass in `"https:example.com"`, jsdom will interpret that as if you had given `"https://example.com/"`. If you pass an unparseable URL, the call will throw. (URLs are parsed and serialized according to the [URL Standard](http://url.spec.whatwg.org/).)
59
60### Executing scripts
61
62jsdom's most powerful ability is that it can execute scripts inside the jsdom. These scripts can modify the content of the page and access all the web platform APIs jsdom implements.
63
64However, this is also highly dangerous when dealing with untrusted content. The jsdom sandbox is not foolproof, and code running inside the DOM's `<script>`s can, if it tries hard enough, get access to the Node.js environment, and thus to your machine. As such, the ability to execute scripts embedded in the HTML is disabled by default:
65
66```js
67const dom = new JSDOM(`<body>
68  <script>document.body.appendChild(document.createElement("hr"));</script>
69</body>`);
70
71// The script will not be executed, by default:
72dom.window.document.body.children.length === 1;
73```
74
75To enable executing scripts inside the page, you can use the `runScripts: "dangerously"` option:
76
77```js
78const dom = new JSDOM(`<body>
79  <script>document.body.appendChild(document.createElement("hr"));</script>
80</body>`, { runScripts: "dangerously" });
81
82// The script will be executed and modify the DOM:
83dom.window.document.body.children.length === 2;
84```
85
86Again we emphasize to only use this when feeding jsdom code you know is safe. If you use it on arbitrary user-supplied code, or code from the Internet, you are effectively running untrusted Node.js code, and your machine could be compromised.
87
88If you want to execute _external_ scripts, included via `<script src="">`, you'll also need to ensure that they load them. To do this, add the option `resources: "usable"` [as described below](#loading-subresources).
89
90Note that event handler attributes, like `<div onclick="">`, will also not function unless `runScripts` is set to `"dangerously"`. (However, event handler _properties_, like `div.onclick = ...`, will function regardless of `runScripts`.)
91
92If you are simply trying to execute script "from the outside", instead of letting `<script>` elements (and inline event handlers) run "from the inside", you can use the `runScripts: "outside-only"` option, which enables `window.eval`:
93
94```js
95const window = (new JSDOM(``, { runScripts: "outside-only" })).window;
96
97window.eval(`document.body.innerHTML = "<p>Hello, world!</p>";`);
98window.document.body.children.length === 1;
99```
100
101This is turned off by default for performance reasons, but is safe to enable.
102
103Note that we strongly advise against trying to "execute scripts" by mashing together the jsdom and Node global environments (e.g. by doing `global.window = dom.window`), and then executing scripts or test code inside the Node global environment. Instead, you should treat jsdom like you would a browser, and run all scripts and tests that need access to a DOM inside the jsdom environment, using `window.eval` or `runScripts: "dangerously"`. This might require, for example, creating a browserify bundle to execute as a `<script>` element—just like you would in a browser.
104
105Finally, for advanced use cases you can use the `dom.runVMScript(script)` method, documented below.
106
107### Pretending to be a visual browser
108
109jsdom does not have the capability to render visual content, and will act like a headless browser by default. It provides hints to web pages through APIs such as `document.hidden` that their content is not visible.
110
111When the `pretendToBeVisual` option is set to `true`, jsdom will pretend that it is rendering and displaying content. It does this by:
112
113* Changing `document.hidden` to return `false` instead of `true`
114* Changing `document.visibilityState` to return `"visible"` instead of `"prerender"`
115* Enabling `window.requestAnimationFrame()` and `window.cancelAnimationFrame()` methods, which otherwise do not exist
116
117```js
118const window = (new JSDOM(``, { pretendToBeVisual: true })).window;
119
120window.requestAnimationFrame(timestamp => {
121  console.log(timestamp > 0);
122});
123```
124
125Note that jsdom still [does not do any layout or rendering](#unimplemented-parts-of-the-web-platform), so this is really just about _pretending_ to be visual, not about implementing the parts of the platform a real, visual web browser would implement.
126
127### Loading subresources
128
129#### Basic options
130
131By default, jsdom will not load any subresources such as scripts, stylesheets, images, or iframes. If you'd like jsdom to load such resources, you can pass the `resources: "usable"` option, which will load all usable resources. Those are:
132
133* Frames and iframes, via `<frame>` and `<iframe>`
134* Stylesheets, via `<link rel="stylesheet">`
135* Scripts, via `<script>`, but only if `runScripts: "dangerously"` is also set
136* Images, via `<img>`, but only if the `canvas` npm package is also installed (see "Canvas Support" below)
137
138#### Advanced configuration
139
140_This resource loader system is new as of jsdom v12.0.0, and we'd love your feedback on whether it meets your needs and how easy it is to use. Please file an issue to discuss!_
141
142To more fully customize jsdom's resource-loading behavior, you can pass an instance of the `ResourceLoader` class as the `resources` option value:
143
144```js
145const resourceLoader = new jsdom.ResourceLoader({
146  proxy: "http://127.0.0.1:9001",
147  strictSSL: false,
148  userAgent: "Mellblomenator/9000",
149});
150const dom = new JSDOM(``, { resources: resourceLoader });
151```
152
153The three options to the `ResourceLoader` constructor are:
154
155- `proxy` is the address of an HTTP proxy to be used.
156- `strictSSL` can be set to false to disable the requirement that SSL certificates be valid.
157- `userAgent` affects the `User-Agent` header sent, and thus the resulting value for `navigator.userAgent`. It defaults to <code>\`Mozilla/5.0 (${process.platform || "unknown OS"}) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) jsdom/${jsdomVersion}\`</code>.
158
159You can further customize resource fetching by subclassing `ResourceLoader` and overriding the `fetch()` method. For example, here is a version that only returns results for requests to a trusted origin:
160
161```js
162class CustomResourceLoader extends jsdom.ResourceLoader {
163  fetch(url, options) {
164    // Override the contents of this script to do something unusual.
165    if (url === "https://example.com/some-specific-script.js") {
166      return Promise.resolve(Buffer.from("window.someGlobal = 5;"));
167    }
168
169    return super.fetch(url, options);
170  }
171}
172```
173
174jsdom will call your custom resource loader's `fetch()` method whenever it encounters a "usable" resource, per the above section. The method takes a URL string, as well as a few options which you should pass through unmodified if calling `super.fetch()`. It must return a promise for a Node.js `Buffer` object, or return `null` if the resource is intentionally not to be loaded. In general, most cases will want to delegate to `super.fetch()`, as shown.
175
176One of the options you will receive in `fetch()` will be the element (if applicable) that is fetching a resource.
177
178```js
179class CustomResourceLoader extends jsdom.ResourceLoader {
180  fetch(url, options) {
181    if (options.element) {
182      console.log(`Element ${options.element.localName} is requesting the url ${url}`);
183    }
184
185    return super.fetch(url, options);
186  }
187}
188```
189
190### Virtual consoles
191
192Like web browsers, jsdom has the concept of a "console". This records both information directly sent from the page, via scripts executing inside the document, as well as information from the jsdom implementation itself. We call the user-controllable console a "virtual console", to distinguish it from the Node.js `console` API and from the inside-the-page `window.console` API.
193
194By default, the `JSDOM` constructor will return an instance with a virtual console that forwards all its output to the Node.js console. To create your own virtual console and pass it to jsdom, you can override this default by doing
195
196```js
197const virtualConsole = new jsdom.VirtualConsole();
198const dom = new JSDOM(``, { virtualConsole });
199```
200
201Code like this will create a virtual console with no behavior. You can give it behavior by adding event listeners for all the possible console methods:
202
203```js
204virtualConsole.on("error", () => { ... });
205virtualConsole.on("warn", () => { ... });
206virtualConsole.on("info", () => { ... });
207virtualConsole.on("dir", () => { ... });
208// ... etc. See https://console.spec.whatwg.org/#logging
209```
210
211(Note that it is probably best to set up these event listeners *before* calling `new JSDOM()`, since errors or console-invoking script might occur during parsing.)
212
213If you simply want to redirect the virtual console output to another console, like the default Node.js one, you can do
214
215```js
216virtualConsole.sendTo(console);
217```
218
219There is also a special event, `"jsdomError"`, which will fire with error objects to report errors from jsdom itself. This is similar to how error messages often show up in web browser consoles, even if they are not initiated by `console.error`. So far, the following errors are output this way:
220
221- Errors loading or parsing subresources (scripts, stylesheets, frames, and iframes)
222- Script execution errors that are not handled by a window `onerror` event handler that returns `true` or calls `event.preventDefault()`
223- Not-implemented errors resulting from calls to methods, like `window.alert`, which jsdom does not implement, but installs anyway for web compatibility
224
225If you're using `sendTo(c)` to send errors to `c`, by default it will call `c.error(errorStack[, errorDetail])` with information from `"jsdomError"` events. If you'd prefer to maintain a strict one-to-one mapping of events to method calls, and perhaps handle `"jsdomError"`s yourself, then you can do
226
227```js
228virtualConsole.sendTo(c, { omitJSDOMErrors: true });
229```
230
231### Cookie jars
232
233Like web browsers, jsdom has the concept of a cookie jar, storing HTTP cookies. Cookies that have a URL on the same domain as the document, and are not marked HTTP-only, are accessible via the `document.cookie` API. Additionally, all cookies in the cookie jar will impact the fetching of subresources.
234
235By default, the `JSDOM` constructor will return an instance with an empty cookie jar. To create your own cookie jar and pass it to jsdom, you can override this default by doing
236
237```js
238const cookieJar = new jsdom.CookieJar(store, options);
239const dom = new JSDOM(``, { cookieJar });
240```
241
242This is mostly useful if you want to share the same cookie jar among multiple jsdoms, or prime the cookie jar with certain values ahead of time.
243
244Cookie jars are provided by the [tough-cookie](https://www.npmjs.com/package/tough-cookie) package. The `jsdom.CookieJar` constructor is a subclass of the tough-cookie cookie jar which by default sets the `looseMode: true` option, since that [matches better how browsers behave](https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/804). If you want to use tough-cookie's utilities and classes yourself, you can use the `jsdom.toughCookie` module export to get access to the tough-cookie module instance packaged with jsdom.
245
246### Intervening before parsing
247
248jsdom allows you to intervene in the creation of a jsdom very early: after the `Window` and `Document` objects are created, but before any HTML is parsed to populate the document with nodes:
249
250```js
251const dom = new JSDOM(`<p>Hello</p>`, {
252  beforeParse(window) {
253    window.document.childNodes.length === 0;
254    window.someCoolAPI = () => { /* ... */ };
255  }
256});
257```
258
259This is especially useful if you are wanting to modify the environment in some way, for example adding shims for web platform APIs jsdom does not support.
260
261## `JSDOM` object API
262
263Once you have constructed a `JSDOM` object, it will have the following useful capabilities:
264
265### Properties
266
267The property `window` retrieves the `Window` object that was created for you.
268
269The properties `virtualConsole` and `cookieJar` reflect the options you pass in, or the defaults created for you if nothing was passed in for those options.
270
271### Serializing the document with `serialize()`
272
273The `serialize()` method will return the [HTML serialization](https://html.spec.whatwg.org/#html-fragment-serialisation-algorithm) of the document, including the doctype:
274
275```js
276const dom = new JSDOM(`<!DOCTYPE html>hello`);
277
278dom.serialize() === "<!DOCTYPE html><html><head></head><body>hello</body></html>";
279
280// Contrast with:
281dom.window.document.documentElement.outerHTML === "<html><head></head><body>hello</body></html>";
282```
283
284### Getting the source location of a node with `nodeLocation(node)`
285
286The `nodeLocation()` method will find where a DOM node is within the source document, returning the [parse5 location info](https://www.npmjs.com/package/parse5#options-locationinfo) for the node:
287
288```js
289const dom = new JSDOM(
290  `<p>Hello
291    <img src="foo.jpg">
292  </p>`,
293  { includeNodeLocations: true }
294);
295
296const document = dom.window.document;
297const bodyEl = document.body; // implicitly created
298const pEl = document.querySelector("p");
299const textNode = pEl.firstChild;
300const imgEl = document.querySelector("img");
301
302console.log(dom.nodeLocation(bodyEl));   // null; it's not in the source
303console.log(dom.nodeLocation(pEl));      // { startOffset: 0, endOffset: 39, startTag: ..., endTag: ... }
304console.log(dom.nodeLocation(textNode)); // { startOffset: 3, endOffset: 13 }
305console.log(dom.nodeLocation(imgEl));    // { startOffset: 13, endOffset: 32 }
306```
307
308Note that this feature only works if you have set the `includeNodeLocations` option; node locations are off by default for performance reasons.
309
310### Running vm-created scripts with `runVMScript(script[, options])`
311
312The built-in `vm` module of Node.js allows you to create `Script` instances, which can be compiled ahead of time and then run multiple times on a given "VM context". Behind the scenes, a jsdom `Window` is indeed a VM context. To get access to this ability, use the `runVMScript()` method:
313
314```js
315const { Script } = require("vm");
316
317const dom = new JSDOM(``, { runScripts: "outside-only" });
318const s = new Script(`
319  if (!this.ran) {
320    this.ran = 0;
321  }
322
323  ++this.ran;
324`);
325
326dom.runVMScript(s);
327dom.runVMScript(s);
328dom.runVMScript(s);
329
330dom.window.ran === 3;
331```
332
333This is somewhat-advanced functionality, and we advise sticking to normal DOM APIs (such as `window.eval()` or `document.createElement("script")`) unless you have very specific needs.
334
335`runVMScript()` also takes an `options` object as its second argument. See the [Node.js docs](https://nodejs.org/api/vm.html#vm_script_runincontext_contextifiedsandbox_options) for details. (This functionality does not work when [using jsdom in a web browser](running-jsdom-inside-a-web-browser).)
336
337### Reconfiguring the jsdom with `reconfigure(settings)`
338
339The `top` property on `window` is marked `[Unforgeable]` in the spec, meaning it is a non-configurable own property and thus cannot be overridden or shadowed by normal code running inside the jsdom, even using `Object.defineProperty`.
340
341Similarly, at present jsdom does not handle navigation (such as setting `window.location.href = "https://example.com/"`); doing so will cause the virtual console to emit a `"jsdomError"` explaining that this feature is not implemented, and nothing will change: there will be no new `Window` or `Document` object, and the existing `window`'s `location` object will still have all the same property values.
342
343However, if you're acting from outside the window, e.g. in some test framework that creates jsdoms, you can override one or both of these using the special `reconfigure()` method:
344
345```js
346const dom = new JSDOM();
347
348dom.window.top === dom.window;
349dom.window.location.href === "about:blank";
350
351dom.reconfigure({ windowTop: myFakeTopForTesting, url: "https://example.com/" });
352
353dom.window.top === myFakeTopForTesting;
354dom.window.location.href === "https://example.com/";
355```
356
357Note that changing the jsdom's URL will impact all APIs that return the current document URL, such as `window.location`, `document.URL`, and `document.documentURI`, as well as resolution of relative URLs within the document, and the same-origin checks and referrer used while fetching subresources. It will not, however, perform a navigation to the contents of that URL; the contents of the DOM will remain unchanged, and no new instances of `Window`, `Document`, etc. will be created.
358
359## Convenience APIs
360
361### `fromURL()`
362
363In addition to the `JSDOM` constructor itself, jsdom provides a promise-returning factory method for constructing a jsdom from a URL:
364
365```js
366JSDOM.fromURL("https://example.com/", options).then(dom => {
367  console.log(dom.serialize());
368});
369```
370
371The returned promise will fulfill with a `JSDOM` instance if the URL is valid and the request is successful. Any redirects will be followed to their ultimate destination.
372
373The options provided to `fromURL()` are similar to those provided to the `JSDOM` constructor, with the following additional restrictions and consequences:
374
375- The `url` and `contentType` options cannot be provided.
376- The `referrer` option is used as the HTTP `Referer` request header of the initial request.
377- The `resources` option also affects the initial request; this is useful if you want to, for example, configure a proxy (see above).
378- The resulting jsdom's URL, content type, and referrer are determined from the response.
379- Any cookies set via HTTP `Set-Cookie` response headers are stored in the jsdom's cookie jar. Similarly, any cookies already in a supplied cookie jar are sent as HTTP `Cookie` request headers.
380
381### `fromFile()`
382
383Similar to `fromURL()`, jsdom also provides a `fromFile()` factory method for constructing a jsdom from a filename:
384
385```js
386JSDOM.fromFile("stuff.html", options).then(dom => {
387  console.log(dom.serialize());
388});
389```
390
391The returned promise will fulfill with a `JSDOM` instance if the given file can be opened. As usual in Node.js APIs, the filename is given relative to the current working directory.
392
393The options provided to `fromFile()` are similar to those provided to the `JSDOM` constructor, with the following additional defaults:
394
395- The `url` option will default to a file URL corresponding to the given filename, instead of to `"about:blank"`.
396- The `contentType` option will default to `"application/xhtml+xml"` if the given filename ends in `.xhtml` or `.xml`; otherwise it will continue to default to `"text/html"`.
397
398### `fragment()`
399
400For the very simplest of cases, you might not need a whole `JSDOM` instance with all its associated power. You might not even need a `Window` or `Document`! Instead, you just need to parse some HTML, and get a DOM object you can manipulate. For that, we have `fragment()`, which creates a `DocumentFragment` from a given string:
401
402```js
403const frag = JSDOM.fragment(`<p>Hello</p><p><strong>Hi!</strong>`);
404
405frag.childNodes.length === 2;
406frag.querySelector("strong").textContent = "Why hello there!";
407// etc.
408```
409
410Here `frag` is a [`DocumentFragment`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/DocumentFragment) instance, whose contents are created by parsing the provided string. The parsing is done using a `<template>` element, so you can include any element there (including ones with weird parsing rules like `<td>`).
411
412All invocations of the `fragment()` factory result in `DocumentFragment`s that share the same owner `Document` and `Window`. This allows many calls to `fragment()` with no extra overhead. But it also means that calls to `fragment()` cannot be customized with any options.
413
414Note that serialization is not as easy with `DocumentFragment`s as it is with full `JSDOM` objects. If you need to serialize your DOM, you should probably use the `JSDOM` constructor more directly. But for the special case of a fragment containing a single element, it's pretty easy to do through normal means:
415
416```js
417const frag = JSDOM.fragment(`<p>Hello</p>`);
418console.log(frag.firstChild.outerHTML); // logs "<p>Hello</p>"
419```
420
421## Other noteworthy features
422
423### Canvas support
424
425jsdom includes support for using the [`canvas`](https://www.npmjs.com/package/canvas) package to extend any `<canvas>` elements with the canvas API. To make this work, you need to include `canvas` as a dependency in your project, as a peer of `jsdom`. If jsdom can find the `canvas` package, it will use it, but if it's not present, then `<canvas>` elements will behave like `<div>`s. Since jsdom v13, version 2.x of `canvas` is required; version 1.x is no longer supported.
426
427### Encoding sniffing
428
429In addition to supplying a string, the `JSDOM` constructor can also be supplied binary data, in the form of a Node.js [`Buffer`](https://nodejs.org/docs/latest/api/buffer.html) or a standard JavaScript binary data type like `ArrayBuffer`, `Uint8Array`, `DataView`, etc. When this is done, jsdom will [sniff the encoding](https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/syntax.html#encoding-sniffing-algorithm) from the supplied bytes, scanning for `<meta charset>` tags just like a browser does.
430
431This encoding sniffing also applies to `JSDOM.fromFile()` and `JSDOM.fromURL()`. In the latter case, just as in a browser, any `Content-Type` headers sent with the response will take priority.
432
433Note that in many cases supplying bytes in this fashion can be better than supplying a string. For example, if you attempt to use Node.js's `buffer.toString("utf-8")` API, Node.js will not strip any leading BOMs. If you then give this string to jsdom, it will interpret it verbatim, leaving the BOM intact. But jsdom's binary data decoding code will strip leading BOMs, just like a browser; in such cases, supplying `buffer` directly will give the desired result.
434
435### Closing down a jsdom
436
437Timers in the jsdom (set by `window.setTimeout()` or `window.setInterval()`) will, by definition, execute code in the future in the context of the window. Since there is no way to execute code in the future without keeping the process alive, outstanding jsdom timers will keep your Node.js process alive. Similarly, since there is no way to execute code in the context of an object without keeping that object alive, outstanding jsdom timers will prevent garbage collection of the window on which they are scheduled.
438
439If you want to be sure to shut down a jsdom window, use `window.close()`, which will terminate all running timers (and also remove any event listeners on the window and document).
440
441### Running jsdom inside a web browser
442
443jsdom has some support for being run inside a web browser, using [browserify](https://browserify.org/). That is, inside a web browser, you can use a browserified jsdom to create an entirely self-contained set of plain JavaScript objects which look and act much like the browser's existing DOM objects, while being entirely independent of them. "Virtual DOM", indeed!
444
445jsdom's primary target is still Node.js, and so we use language features that are only present in recent Node.js versions (namely, Node.js v6+). Thus, older browsers will likely not work. (Even transpilation will not help much: we plan to use `Proxy`s extensively throughout the course of jsdom v10.x.)
446
447Notably, jsdom works well inside a web worker. The original contributor, [@lawnsea](https://github.com/lawnsea/), who made this possible, has [published a paper](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/47f0/6bb6607a975500a30e9e52d7c9fbc0034e27.pdf) about his project which uses this capability.
448
449Not everything works perfectly when running jsdom inside a web browser. Sometimes that is because of fundamental limitations (such as not having filesystem access), but sometimes it is simply because we haven't spent enough time making the appropriate small tweaks. Bug reports are certainly welcome.
450
451### Debugging the DOM using Chrome Devtools
452
453As of Node.js v6 you can debug programs using Chrome Devtools. See the [official documentation](https://nodejs.org/en/docs/inspector/) for how to get started.
454
455By default jsdom elements are formatted as plain old JS objects in the console. To make it easier to debug, you can use [jsdom-devtools-formatter](https://github.com/viddo/jsdom-devtools-formatter), which lets you inspect them like real DOM elements.
456
457## Caveats
458
459### Asynchronous script loading
460
461People often have trouble with asynchronous script loading when using jsdom. Many pages loads scripts asynchronously, but there is no way to tell when they're done doing so, and thus when it's a good time to run your code and inspect the resulting DOM structure. This is a fundamental limitation; we cannot predict what scripts on the web page will do, and so cannot tell you when they are done loading more scripts.
462
463This can be worked around in a few ways. The best way, if you control the page in question, is to use whatever mechanisms are given by the script loader to detect when loading is done. For example, if you're using a module loader like RequireJS, the code could look like:
464
465```js
466// On the Node.js side:
467const window = (new JSDOM(...)).window;
468window.onModulesLoaded = () => {
469  console.log("ready to roll!");
470};
471```
472
473```html
474<!-- Inside the HTML you supply to jsdom -->
475<script>
476requirejs(["entry-module"], () => {
477  window.onModulesLoaded();
478});
479</script>
480```
481
482If you do not control the page, you could try workarounds such as polling for the presence of a specific element.
483
484For more details, see the discussion in [#640](https://github.com/tmpvar/jsdom/issues/640), especially [@matthewkastor](https://github.com/matthewkastor)'s [insightful comment](https://github.com/tmpvar/jsdom/issues/640#issuecomment-22216965).
485
486### Shared constructors and prototypes
487
488At the present time, for most web platform APIs, jsdom shares the same class definition between multiple seemingly-independent jsdoms. That means that, for example, the following situation can occur:
489
490```js
491const dom1 = new JSDOM();
492const dom2 = new JSDOM();
493
494dom1.window.Element.prototype.expando = "blah";
495console.log(dom2.window.document.createElement("frameset").expando); // logs "blah"
496```
497
498This is done mainly for performance and memory reasons: creating separate copies of all the many classes on the web platform, each time we create a jsdom, would be rather expensive.
499
500Nevertheless, we remain interested in one day providing an option to create an "independent" jsdom, at the cost of some performance.
501
502### Unimplemented parts of the web platform
503
504Although we enjoy adding new features to jsdom and keeping it up to date with the latest web specs, it has many missing APIs. Please feel free to file an issue for anything missing, but we're a small and busy team, so a pull request might work even better.
505
506Beyond just features that we haven't gotten to yet, there are two major features that are currently outside the scope of jsdom. These are:
507
508- **Navigation**: the ability to change the global object, and all other objects, when clicking a link or assigning `location.href` or similar.
509- **Layout**: the ability to calculate where elements will be visually laid out as a result of CSS, which impacts methods like `getBoundingClientRects()` or properties like `offsetTop`.
510
511Currently jsdom has dummy behaviors for some aspects of these features, such as sending a "not implemented" `"jsdomError"` to the virtual console for navigation, or returning zeros for many layout-related properties. Often you can work around these limitations in your code, e.g. by creating new `JSDOM` instances for each page you "navigate" to during a crawl, or using `Object.defineProperty()` to change what various layout-related getters and methods return.
512
513Note that other tools in the same space, such as PhantomJS, do support these features. On the wiki, we have a more complete writeup about [jsdom vs. PhantomJS](https://github.com/tmpvar/jsdom/wiki/jsdom-vs.-PhantomJS).
514
515## Getting help
516
517If you need help with jsdom, please feel free to use any of the following venues:
518
519- The [mailing list](http://groups.google.com/group/jsdom) (best for "how do I" questions)
520- The [issue tracker](https://github.com/tmpvar/jsdom/issues) (best for bug reports)
521- The IRC channel: [#jsdom on freenode](irc://irc.freenode.net/jsdom)
522