Case Sensitivity in Internet Explorer

In Internet Explorer 3.0, the core JavaScript language is case-sensitive, as it is in Navigator. Unfortunately, all of the objects, and their methods and properties, added to this core language by client-side JavaScript are case-insensitive in IE. The Date and Math objects are a built-in part of core JavaScript, so they are case-sensitive in IE; to compute a sine, you must invoke Math.sin(), exactly as shown here. On the other hand, the Document object is part of client-side JavaScript, so it is not case-sensitive. This means that where you would type document.write() in Navigator, you could use Document.Write(), DOCUMENT.WRITE(), or even DoCuMeNt.WrItE() in Internet Explorer.

All user-defined variables, functions, and objects are case-sensitive in IE; it is just the client-side objects and their predefined methods and properties that are not. This does mean, however that you need to be careful how you name your variables and properties. For example, the Window object has a property named parent. In Navigator, it would be perfectly safe to create a new property of a Window object and name it Parent. This would not be okay in IE, however, and would either cause an error or overwrite the value of the parent property.

The reason that client-side objects are not case-sensitive in IE is that IE allows the same client-side objects to be used by the VBScript scripting language. VBScript, like Visual Basic, is not case-sensitive, so Microsoft felt that their client-side objects must not be either. Because of Microsoft's requirement for VBScript, it is not likely that the client-side objects will become case-sensitive in a future version of IE; this is an incompatibility that we will have to live with.

This incompatibility presents a worst-of-both-worlds situation. Because Navigator is case-sensitive, you must be sure to type all your object, method, and property names in exactly the correct case. But because IE is not case-sensitive, you can't take advantage of Navigator's case sensitivity to create different variables with the same spelling and different capitalizations.