How Should The Return Value Of Javascript Links Be Handled?

According to standards, what's the correct way to handle the return value of javascript protocol href links? Some examples: How should a standard-compliant browser

Solution 1:

From Web Applications API §6.1.5:

The following explains why clicking the links replaces the document content:

If the result of executing the script is void (there is no return value), then the URL must be treated in a manner equivalent to an HTTP resource with an HTTP 204 No Content response.

Otherwise, the URL must be treated in a manner equivalent to an HTTP resource with a 200 OK response whose Content-Type metadata is text/html and whose response body is the return value converted to a string value.

This behavior can also be demonstrated easily by simply pasting javascript:"Hello World"; in the address bar. Same goes for javascript:(function() { return "Hello World";})().

And the following explains why only your 1 and 2 code snippets are actually doing something.

Let the script source be the string obtained using the content retrieval operation defined for javascript: URLs