Possible cases for Javascript error: "Expected identifier, string or number"

Solution 1:

The cause of this type of error can often be a misplaced comma in an object or array definition:

var obj = {
   id: 23,
   name: "test",  <--
}

If it appears at a random line, maybe it's part of an object defintion you are creating dynamically.

Solution 2:

Using the word class as a key in a Javascript dictionary can also trigger the dreaded "Expected identifier, string or number" error because class is a reserved keyword in Internet Explorer.

BAD

{ class : 'overlay'} // ERROR: Expected identifier, string or number

GOOD

{'class': 'overlay'}

When using a reserved keyword as a key in a Javascript dictionary, enclose the key in quotes.

Hope this hint saves you a day of debugging hell.

Solution 3:

Actually I got something like that on IE recently and it was related to JavaScript syntax "errors". I say error in quotes because it was fine everywhere but on IE. This was under IE6. The problem was related to JSON object creation and an extra comma, such as

{ one:1, two:2, three:3, }

IE6 really doesn't like that comma after 3. You might look for something like that, touchy little syntax formality issues.

Yeah, I thought the multi-million line number in my 25 line JavaScript was interesting too.

Good luck.

Solution 4:

This is a definitive un-answer: eliminating a tempting-but-wrong answer to help others navigate toward correct answers.

It might seem like debugging would highlight the problem. However, the only browser the problem occurs in is IE, and in IE you can only debug code that was part of the original document. For dynamically added code, the debugger just shows the body element as the current instruction, and IE claims the error happened on a huge line number.

Here's a sample web page that will demonstrate this problem in IE:

<html>
<head>
<title>javascript debug test</title>
</head>
<body onload="attachScript();">
<script type="text/javascript">
function attachScript() {
   var s = document.createElement("script");
   s.setAttribute("type", "text/javascript");
   document.body.appendChild(s);
   s.text = "var a = document.getElementById('nonexistent'); alert(a.tagName);"
}
</script>
</body>

This yielded for me the following error:

Line: 54654408
Error: Object required

Possible cases for Javascript error: "Expected identifier, string or number"

Solution 1:

Solution 2:

Solution 3:

Solution 4:

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