getElementById finds an element in IE but not Firefox

Dave Hammond · Feb 15, 2005

Hi All,

The following code works in IE but not Firefox. IE produces the
expected "this is more text!" output, but Firefox produces "no more
text". Any ideas why?

<BODY>
<FORM>
<INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME="moreText" VALUE="<PRE>This is more
text!</PRE>">
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="javascript">
var m = (document.getElementById &&
document.getElementById('moreText'))
? document.getElementById('moreText').value
: '<PRE>no more text</PRE>';
document.writeln(m);
</SCRIPT>
</FORM>
</BODY>

FYI, I've tried it with the script both within and outside the form,
and the code behaves identically.

Thanks!
-Dave H.

Evertjan. · Feb 15, 2005

Dave Hammond wrote on 15 feb 2005 in comp.lang.javascript:

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="javascript">
var m = (document.getElementById &&
document.getElementById('moreText'))
? document.getElementById('moreText').value
: '<PRE>no more text</PRE>';
document.writeln(m);
</SCRIPT>

You cannot do a document.write() when the page is already loaded and on
screen without destroying the whole page, including the javascript.

Try DOM-inserting (innerHTML or child) to a <div>

Dietmar Meier · Feb 15, 2005

Dave said:
The following code works in IE but not Firefox.
[...]
<INPUT [...] NAME="moreText" [...]> ~~~~

[...]
document.getElementById('moreText')

Click to expand...

~~~~
[...]

In MSIE only, name and id attributes share one namespace.
Simply add an id="moreText" attribute to the input element.

ciao, dhgm

Dave Hammond · Feb 15, 2005

I changed the NAME= to ID= and everything works as expected.

Thanks for the quick response!

-Dave H.

Dr John Stockton · Feb 15, 2005

JRS: In article <[email protected]>, dated Tue, 15
Feb 2005 13:35:52, seen in Evertjan.

You cannot do a document.write() when the page is already loaded and on
screen without destroying the whole page, including the javascript.

But
for (j=0 ; j<10 ; j++) document.write(j)

shows on the new page 0123456789 so the script is not immediately
destroyed by the first document.write(). Or, if it is immediately
destroyed on other browsers, I need to do some site re-design.

The original page is immediately destroyed, so all input controls needed
must be read before the first such document.write()

Robert · Feb 15, 2005

You cannot do a document.write() when the page is already loaded and
on

screen without destroying the whole page, including the javascript.

This is a true statement, but it doesn't apply to the original poster
becuase the page hasn't been loaded since the </body> hasn't been
encountered.

I added the id tag to make it work in more browsers.

<BODY>
<FORM>
<INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME="moreText" id="moreText" VALUE="<PRE>This is
more
text!</PRE>">
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="javascript">
var m = (document.getElementById &&
document.getElementById('moreText'))
? document.getElementById('moreText').value
: '<PRE>no more text</PRE>';
document.writeln(m);
</SCRIPT>
</FORM>
</BODY>

Randy Webb · Feb 16, 2005

Robert said:
This is a true statement, but it doesn't apply to the original poster
becuase the page hasn't been loaded since the </body> hasn't been
encountered.

I added the id tag to make it work in more browsers.

<BODY>
<FORM>
<INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME="moreText" id="moreText" VALUE="<PRE>This is
more
text!</PRE>">
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="javascript">
var m = (document.getElementById &&
document.getElementById('moreText'))
? document.getElementById('moreText').value
: '<PRE>no more text</PRE>';
document.writeln(m);
</SCRIPT>
</FORM>
</BODY>

You could make it work in even more browsers if you used the forms
collection and referenced the form element by its name attribute. If for
no other reason that there are more browsers that support the forms
collection than browsers that support document.getElementById

var m = (document.forms &&
document.forms['moreText'] &&
document.forms['moreText'].value)
? document.forms['moreText'].value
: '<pre>No More Text</pre>';
document.write(m)

Randy Webb · Feb 16, 2005

Randy said:
Robert said:

This is a true statement, but it doesn't apply to the original poster
becuase the page hasn't been loaded since the </body> hasn't been
encountered.

I added the id tag to make it work in more browsers.

<BODY>
<FORM>
<INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME="moreText" id="moreText" VALUE="<PRE>This is
more
text!</PRE>">
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="javascript">
var m = (document.getElementById &&
document.getElementById('moreText'))
? document.getElementById('moreText').value
: '<PRE>no more text</PRE>';
document.writeln(m);
</SCRIPT>
</FORM>
</BODY>

Click to expand...

You could make it work in even more browsers if you used the forms
collection and referenced the form element by its name attribute. If for
no other reason that there are more browsers that support the forms
collection than browsers that support document.getElementById

var m = (document.forms &&
document.forms['moreText'] &&
document.forms['moreText'].value)
? document.forms['moreText'].value
: '<pre>No More Text</pre>';
document.write(m)

My fingers get ahead of my brain sometimes:

var m = (document.forms &&
document.forms['formName'] &&
document.forms['formName'].elements['moreText'] &&
document.forms['formName'].elements['moreText'].value)
? document.forms['formName'].elements['moreText'].value
: '<pre>No More Text</pre>';
document.write(m)

Fred Oz · Feb 16, 2005

Dietmar Meier wrote:
[...]

In MSIE only, name and id attributes share one namespace.
Simply add an id="moreText" attribute to the input element.

Possibly a tad *too* concise Dietmar ;-)

I'm certain the following is what was intended:

[That method works in]... MSIE only, [the W3C HTML specification
states that] name and id attributes share one namespace.

Which the IE developers seem to have interpreted as "let's treat
ID and NAME as if they are the same thing - but not always".

Evertjan. · Feb 16, 2005

Dr John Stockton wrote on 15 feb 2005 in comp.lang.javascript:

The original page is immediately destroyed, so all input controls
needed must be read before the first such document.write()

Let's try [IE6]:

<html>
<body onload="c()">
<input id=b value='hello there'>
</body>
</html>

<script type='text/javascript'>
function c(){
a=document.getElementById('b').value

document.open()
alert('1 '+a)
document.write('<br>'+a);
alert('2: '+a)
z=document.getElementById('b').value
// here the script seems to be gone, no error however !!!
document.write('<br>'+z);
alert('3: '+z)
}
</script>

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getElementById finds an element in IE but not Firefox

Dave Hammond

Evertjan.

Dietmar Meier

Dave Hammond

Dr John Stockton

Robert

Randy Webb

Randy Webb

Fred Oz

Evertjan.

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