HTML5 Local Storage fallback solutions

have you seen the polyfill page on the Modernizr wiki?

https://github.com/Modernizr/Modernizr/wiki/HTML5-Cross-browser-Polyfills

look for the webstorage section on that page and you will see 10 potential solutions (as of July 2011).

good luck! Mark

Pure JS based simple localStorage polyfill:

Demo: http://jsfiddle.net/aamir/S4X35/

HTML:

<a href='#' onclick="store.set('foo','bar')">set key: foo, with value: bar</a><br/>
<a href='#' onclick="alert(store.get('foo'))">get key: foo</a><br/>
<a href='#' onclick="store.del('foo')">delete key: foo</a>​

JS:

window.store = {
    localStoreSupport: function() {
        try {
            return 'localStorage' in window && window['localStorage'] !== null;
        } catch (e) {
            return false;
        }
    },
    set: function(name,value,days) {
        if (days) {
            var date = new Date();
            date.setTime(date.getTime()+(days*24*60*60*1000));
            var expires = "; expires="+date.toGMTString();
        }
        else {
            var expires = "";
        }
        if( this.localStoreSupport() ) {
            localStorage.setItem(name, value);
        }
        else {
            document.cookie = name+"="+value+expires+"; path=/";
        }
    },
    get: function(name) {
        if( this.localStoreSupport() ) {
            var ret = localStorage.getItem(name);
            //console.log(typeof ret);
            switch (ret) {
              case 'true': 
                  return true;
              case 'false':
                  return false;
              default:
                  return ret;
            }
        }
        else {
            // cookie fallback
            /*
             * after adding a cookie like
             * >> document.cookie = "bar=test; expires=Thu, 14 Jun 2018 13:05:38 GMT; path=/"
             * the value of document.cookie may look like
             * >> "foo=value; bar=test"
             */
            var nameEQ = name + "=";  // what we are looking for
            var ca = document.cookie.split(';');  // split into separate cookies
            for(var i=0;i < ca.length;i++) {
                var c = ca[i];  // the current cookie
                while (c.charAt(0)==' ') c = c.substring(1,c.length);  // remove leading spaces
                if (c.indexOf(nameEQ) == 0) {  // if it is the searched cookie
                    var ret = c.substring(nameEQ.length,c.length);
                    // making "true" and "false" a boolean again.
                    switch (ret) {
                      case 'true':
                          return true;
                      case 'false':
                          return false;
                      default:
                          return ret;
                    }
                }
            }
            return null; // no cookie found
        }
    },
    del: function(name) {
        if( this.localStoreSupport() ) {
            localStorage.removeItem(name);
        }
        else {
            this.set(name,"",-1);
        }
    }
}​

I use PersistJS (github repository), which handles client-side storage seamlessly and transparently to your code. You use a single API and get support for the following backends:

• flash: Flash 8 persistent storage.
• gears: Google Gears-based persistent storage.
• localstorage: HTML5 draft storage.
• whatwg_db: HTML5 draft database storage.
• globalstorage: HTML5 draft storage (old spec).
• ie: Internet Explorer userdata behaviors.
• cookie: Cookie-based persistent storage.

Any of those can be disabled—if, for example, you don't want to use cookies. With this library, you'll get native client-side storage support in IE 5.5+, Firefox 2.0+, Safari 3.1+, and Chrome; and plugin-assisted support if the browser has Flash or Gears. If you enable cookies, it will work in everything (but will be limited to 4 kB).