What is the difference between Android webview's loadData and loadDataWithBaseURL

Question

The Android webview has 2 methods to load data

public void loadData (String data, String mimeType, String encoding)

Note that JavaScript's same origin policy means that script running in a page loaded using this method will be unable to access content loaded using any scheme other than 'data', including 'http(s)'. To avoid this restriction, use loadDataWithBaseURL() with an appropriate base URL.

and

public void loadDataWithBaseURL (String baseUrl, String data, String mimeType, String encoding, String historyUrl)

Note that content specified in this way can access local device files (via 'file' scheme URLs) only if baseUrl specifies a scheme other than 'http', 'https', 'ftp', 'ftps', 'about' or 'javascript'.

I don't know what do these 2 sentences mean and when to select between the two ?

Thanks in advance

I've been wondering, how does `setWebViewClient` compare?? – Fattie Nov 30 '16 at 14:13 — Fattie, Nov 30 '16 at 14:13

score 12 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 11 '13 at 18:03

12

public void loadData (String data, String mimeType, String encoding)

In this we pass the HTML, mimeType and encoding

where else in

public void loadDataWithBaseURL (String baseUrl, String data, String mimeType, String encoding, String historyUrl)

where baseUrl could be the base url such as the path to asset folder, or SDCard or any other path, where your images or the other media resides related to your html, and I am not much aware of historyUrl

accoring to the docs of [loadData][1]

Note that JavaScript's same origin policy means that script running in a page loaded using this method will be unable to access content loaded using any scheme other than 'data', including 'http(s)'. To avoid this restriction, use loadDataWithBaseURL() with an appropriate base URL.

means loaddata will only include the part which is resides in the first parameter.

and

Note that content specified in this way can access local device files (via 'file' scheme URLs) only if baseUrl specifies a scheme other than 'http', 'https', 'ftp', 'ftps', 'about' or 'javascript'.

simple meaning of above is you can access the data from http and... other by passing the baseUrl

for example I have written HTML which required tons of image from my ftp or other place what I would do is pass the url of my ftp in baseURl parameter and I can access to my images

edited Jun 11 '13 at 18:03

Regexident

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answered Sep 14 '12 at 09:12

Nixit Patel

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@Yama moto consider this... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_URI_scheme, which mentioned:- used to retrieve files from within one's own computer. in our case it is phone – Nixit Patel Sep 14 '12 at 10:50
what does scheme mean in this context ? – onmyway133 Sep 14 '12 at 10:50
please go through the link it will be helpful – Nixit Patel Sep 14 '12 at 10:52
Does this mean using null for base url will allow me to access javascript from different domain ? – Pradeep Apr 21 '16 at 02:27
when I pass in the baseURL the path to the location of the file on the device (file://...) the webview accesses the content beautifully but is no longer responsive to any link or anchor in the file. kindly take a look at this question: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/57165203/using-loaddatawithbaseurl-disables-links-in-webview – coder Oct 25 '21 at 05:17

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 14 '12 at 08:57

4

The second one comes in handy when you're loading the HTML locally and it references assets such as images & css which are also packaged locally

answered Sep 14 '12 at 08:57

Philippe Girolami

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score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 03 '16 at 10:41

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loadDataWithBaseURL() also comes with Unicode support. It might be helpful when you are trying to load the webpage with content other than English Language.

answered Mar 03 '16 at 10:41

Balman Rawat

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What is the difference between Android webview's loadData and loadDataWithBaseURL

3 Answers3

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