Chrome Extensions - onRequest/sendRequest vs onMessage/sendMessage

Question

Checking out this sample extension linked by a page in the Chrome Extension center, I see they used

chrome.extension.onRequest.addListener(onRequest);

in the background.js page in order to listen to the contentscript.js and

  chrome.extension.sendRequest({}, function(response) {});

in the contentscript.js in order to talk to the background.js page.

But I can't find the documentation for these functions anywhere in the web and Google's Message Passing guide only mentions

chrome.extension.sendMessage(...)

to send, and

chrome.extension.onMessage.addListener(...)

to listen.

Which functions should I use? Is sendRequest/onRequest obsolete? Is the Google's dev guide still up-to-date?

score 20 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 04 '12 at 22:35

20

It seems sendMessage is favored over sendRequest, which is to be deprecated: http://codereview.chromium.org/9965005/

answered Jul 04 '12 at 22:35

Achal Dave

Finally removed from chrome-21. – QwiglyDee Jul 11 '12 at 16:23
3

Thanks. I wish google mentioned that.. alas stackoverflow to the rescue once again! – snapfractalpop Nov 13 '12 at 20:11
I figured this might be the case. Unfortunately this deprecated API call is still used in the chrome extensions "downloads" example. – Jazzepi Mar 06 '13 at 00:55
when for in the chrome.extension, we can still see the method onMessage/onRequest and sendMessage/sendRequest. Why the chrome do not delete it directly. – shawnXiao Oct 04 '13 at 08:08

score 8 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 08 '13 at 16:31

8

Also note the change in API path from

to

will save you getting frustrated over why e.g. chrome.extension.onMessage is not working!

answered Aug 08 '13 at 16:31

peterthinking

2 Answers2