javascript tracker: which to use window.snowplow_name_here or snowplow_name_here

[Travis Devitt]

I'm setting up the javascript tracker and the documentation at https://github.com/snowplow/snowplow/wiki/2-Specific-event-tracking-with-the-Javascript-tracker shows mixed syntax when it comes to the examples. 

For instance the following two syntaxes are being used interchangeably:

window.snowplow('trackPageView');

snowplow_name_here('trackPageView');

Which is the right syntax to use?

Thanks,

Travis

[Ihor Tomilenko]

Hi Travis,

It's up to you how you name your tracker. The name is defined in the snippet of code you embed into your HTML (see the highlighted parted at the end):

<script type="text/javascript">
;(function(p,l,o,w,i,n,g){if(!p[i]){p.GlobalSnowplowNamespace=p.GlobalSnowplowNamespace||[];
p.GlobalSnowplowNamespace.push(i);p[i]=function(){(p[i].q=p[i].q||[]).push(arguments)
};p[i].q=p[i].q||[];n=l.createElement(o);g=l.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];n.async=1;
n.src=w;g.parentNode.insertBefore(n,g)}}(window,document,"script","//d1fc8wv8zag5ca.cloudfront.net/2.5.1/sp.js","snowplow_name_here"));

....

Whatever name you give in the code above that's how you refer to your tracker. If you name it "snowplow" (in the snippet above in place of "snowplow_name_here") then you have to state snowplow('trackPageView');.

The "snowplow_name_here" (in the snippet I pasted above) just indicates that this is the (default) name of your tracker and it's up to you to either keep this name or change it to something else.

Regards,

Ihor

[Travis Devitt]

Thanks Ihor, but it's not the tracker name that is confusing me (I understand it can be whatever you want), it is the javascript reserved word prefix of "window" that is confusing. 

In some of the examples, window.trackername('xxxx') is used and in some other of the examples it's just trackername('xxxx')

Please advise

[Ihor Tomilenko]

Travis,

window is the default object the method is being called on. Either way (with or without window) should work.

Regards,

Ihor

[Travis Devitt]

Thanks!