How to check if an element exist reading XML...

[neousr]

<record>
<title>Lunar Park</title>
<author>Bret Easton Ellis</author>
<publisher></publisher>
<year>2005</year>
</record>

xAuthor =
x.getElementsByTagName("author")[0].firstChild.nodeValue
xPublisher =
x.getElementsByTagName("publisher")[0].firstChild.nodeValue

I'm retrieving data from a xml file, and I need to display that data in
a table, but as soon as I try to reference an element that it's empty
the browser stops working...

Is there any way to prevent this (so, to know wich elements are empty
in a certain "record")?

Thanks a lot in advance.

 

[RobG]

<record>
<title>Lunar Park</title>
<author>Bret Easton Ellis</author>
<publisher></publisher>
<year>2005</year>
</record>

xAuthor =
x.getElementsByTagName("author")[0].firstChild.nodeValue
xPublisher =
x.getElementsByTagName("publisher")[0].firstChild.nodeValue

I'm retrieving data from a xml file, and I need to display that data in
a table, but as soon as I try to reference an element that it's empty
the browser stops working...

Yes, because if there is no firstChild, attempting to get its nodeValue
will cause an error. You could try:

var t = x.getElementsByTagName("author");
xAuthor = (t[0] && t[0].firstChild)? t[0].firstChild.nodeValue : '';

Is there any way to prevent this (so, to know wich elements are empty
in a certain "record")?

A more robust solution is to write a getValue() function:

xAuthor = getValue(x.getElementsByTagName("author"));


and getValue() can be something like:

function getValue(C){
var val='';
for (var i=0, len=C.length; i<len; ++i){
val += C.nodeValue;
}
return val;
}

You may want to add some smarts to getValue() to manage different
element types.