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store.js

store.js exposes a simple API for cross browser local storage

// Store 'marcus' at 'username'
store.set('username', 'marcus')

// Get 'username'
store.get('username')

// Remove 'username'
store.remove('username')

// Clear all keys
store.clear()

// Store an object literal - store.js uses JSON.stringify under the hood
store.set('user', { name: 'marcus', likes: 'javascript' })

// Get the stored object - store.js uses JSON.parse under the hood
var user = store.get('user')
alert(user.name + ' likes ' + user.likes)

store.js depends on JSON for serialization.

How does it work?

store.js uses localStorage when available, and falls back on globalStorage for earlier versions of Firefox and the userData behavior in IE6 and IE7. No flash to slow down your page load. No cookies to fatten your network requests.

Screencast

Introductory Screencast to Store.js by Jack Franklin.

store.enabled - check that localStorage is available

To check that persistance is available, you can use the store.enabled flag:

if( store.enabled ) {
	console.log("localStorage is available");
} else {
	//time to fallback
}

Please note that store.disabled does exist but is deprecated in favour of store.enabled.

There are conditions where localStorage may appear to be available but will throw an error when used. For example, Safari's private browsing mode does this, and some browser allow the user to temporarily disable localStorage. Store.js detects these conditions and sets the store.enabled flag accordingly.

Serialization

localStorage, when used without store.js, calls toString on all stored values. This means that you can't conveniently store and retrieve numbers, objects or arrays:

localStorage.myage = 24
localStorage.myage !== 24
localStorage.myage === '24'

localStorage.user = { name: 'marcus', likes: 'javascript' }
localStorage.user === "[object Object]"

localStorage.tags = ['javascript', 'localStorage', 'store.js']
localStorage.tags.length === 32
localStorage.tags === "javascript,localStorage,store.js"

What we want (and get with store.js) is

store.set('myage', 24)
store.get('myage') === 24

store.set('user', { name: 'marcus', likes: 'javascript' })
alert("Hi my name is " + store.get('user').name + "!")

store.set('tags', ['javascript', 'localStorage', 'store.js'])
alert("We've got " + store.get('tags').length + " tags here")

The native serialization engine of javascript is JSON. Rather than leaving it up to you to serialize and deserialize your values, store.js uses JSON.stringify() and JSON.parse() on each call to store.set() and store.get(), respectively.

Some browsers do not have native support for JSON. For those browsers you should include JSON.js (non-minified copy is included in this repo).

Tests

Go to test.html in your browser.

(Note that test.html must be served over http:// or https://. This is because localStore does not work in some browsers when using the file:// protocol)

Supported browsers

  • Tested in Firefox 2.0
  • Tested in Firefox 3.0
  • Tested in Firefox 3.5
  • Tested in Firefox 3.6
  • Tested in Firefox 4.0
  • Tested in Chrome 5
  • Tested in Chrome 6
  • Tested in Chrome 7
  • Tested in Chrome 8
  • Tested in Chrome 10
  • Tested in Chrome 11
  • Tested in Safari 4
  • Tested in Safari 5
  • Tested in IE6
  • Tested in IE7
  • Tested in IE8
  • Tested in Opera 10
    • Opera 10.54

Important note: In IE6 and IE7, many special characters are not allowed in the keys used to store any key/value pair. With @mferretti's help, there's a suitable workaround which replaces most forbidden characters with "___".

Storage limits

Supported but broken (please help fix)

  • Chrome 4
  • Opera 10.10

Unsupported browsers

  • Firefox 1.0: no means (beside cookies and flash)
  • Safari 2: no means (beside cookies and flash)
  • Safari 3: no synchronous api (has asynch sqlite api, but store.js is synch)
  • Opera 9: don't know if there is synchronous api for storing data locally
  • Firefox 1.5: don't know if there is synchronous api for storing data locally

Forks

TODO

  • What are the storage capacities/restrictions per browser?
  • I believe underlying APIs can throw under certain conditions. Where do we need try/catch?
  • Test different versions of Opera 10.X explicitly

Contributors