How do I clear the contents of a div without innerHTML = ""; - javascript

I have a div that is filled by JS created DOM elements,
I want the div to be cleared upon the JS function repeating, however I have heard that using document.getElementById('elName').innerHTML = ""; is not a good idea,
What is a valid alternative to doing this to clear the div's contents?

If you have jQuery then:
$('#elName').empty();
Otherwise:
var node = document.getElementById('elName');
while (node.hasChildNodes()) {
node.removeChild(node.firstChild);
}

The Prototype way is Element.update() e.g.:
$('my_container').update()

If you're using jQuery have a look at the .empty() method http://api.jquery.com/empty/

You could loop through its children and remove then, ie.
var parDiv = document.getElementById('elName'),
parChildren = parDiv.children, tmpChildren = [], i, e;
for (i = 0, e = parChildren.length; i < e; i++) {
tmpArr.push(parChildren[i]);
}
for (i = 0; i < e; i++) {
parDiv.removeChild(tmpChildren[i]);
}
Or use .empty() if you are using jQuery.
This is just an alternative solution, a while loop is much more elegant.

You can redefine .innerHTML. In Firefox and Chrome, it's not a problem to clear the elements with .innerHTML = "". In IE, it is, because any child elements are immediately cleared. In this example, "mydiv.innerHTML" would normally return "undefined". (without the redefine, that is, and in IE 11 as of the date of this post creation)
if (/(msie|trident)/i.test(navigator.userAgent)) {
var innerhtml_get = Object.getOwnPropertyDescriptor(HTMLElement.prototype, "innerHTML").get
var innerhtml_set = Object.getOwnPropertyDescriptor(HTMLElement.prototype, "innerHTML").set
Object.defineProperty(HTMLElement.prototype, "innerHTML", {
get: function () {return innerhtml_get.call (this)},
set: function(new_html) {
var childNodes = this.childNodes
for (var curlen = childNodes.length, i = curlen; i > 0; i--) {
this.removeChild (childNodes[0])
}
innerhtml_set.call (this, new_html)
}
})
}
var mydiv = document.createElement ('div')
mydiv.innerHTML = "test"
document.body.appendChild (mydiv)
document.body.innerHTML = ""
console.log (mydiv.innerHTML)
http://jsfiddle.net/DLLbc/9/

2022 Answer:
Use element.replaceChildren()
Emptying a node
replaceChildren() provides a very convenient mechanism for emptying a node of all its children. You call it on the parent node without any argument specified:
Doc

Related

Confusion about onclick function

Beginner JS here, hope anyone could explain this to me.
1) Why does this not work:
var allSpans = document.getElementsByTagName('span');
allSpans.onclick = function() {
alert('hoo');
};
2) or if I have all the innerHTML from spans in an array and I try this:
var allSpans = document.getElementsByTagName('span');
var arrayNumbers = [];
for (var i = 0; i < allSpans.length; i++) {
var operator = allSpans[i].innerHTML;
}
arrayNumbers.onclick = function() {
alert('hoo');
};
onclick is a property of HTMLElementNode objects. getElementsByTagName returns a NodeList. Assigning a property to a NodeList doesn't assign it to every member of that list.
Exactly the same, except you are dealing with an Array instead of a NodeList.
You have to iterate through the returned list
var allSpans = document.getElementsByTagName('span');
for ( var i = 0; i < allSpans.length; i += 1 ) {
allSpans[i].onclick = function (event) {
alert('hoo');
};
}
To answer your first question, you have to add this on each node instead of the nodeList, which is what you're getting when you call document.getElementsByTagName. What you're looking for is:
for(var i = 0; i < allSpans.length; i++){
allSpans[i].onClick = function(){
alert('hoo');
};
}
You have a similar issue in the second question, except it doesn't appear as if you're actually adding anything to the arrayNumbers array, so even if you looped through that, you wouldn't get the expect events on click.

Javascript - find all classes from array, grab and return inner text from classes

I have an array of class names that I want to search a page for. Then I'd like to find all those elements, grab the text inside, and append it to a div.
var div = document.createElement('div');
div.innerHTML = 'List of names from this page';
document.body.appendChild(div);
var classNameArray = ['user', 'username', 'fullname', 'profile-field', 'author', 'screen-name'];
for (var i = 0; i < classNameArray.length; i++) {
element = classNameArray[i];
getSuggestedAuthors(element);
function getSuggestedAuthors(element) {
var classes = document.getElementsByClassName(element);
var index;
for (var index = 0; index < classes.length; index++) {
var class = classes[index];
var textInsideClass = class.innerHTML;
div.appendChild(textInsideClass);
}
}
}
When I run this, it gives me:
Uncaught NotFoundError: An attempt was made to reference a Node in a context where it does not exist.
I believe the problem is occuring at var textInsideClass = class.innerHTML, because when I remove that, it simply grabs all the classes and appends them to the div. However, I'd like to only get the text inside the class.
Anyone know how to do this without jQuery? I'm injected this hs through Google Chrome's executeScript injection.
Thanks so much!
I think your issue is that appendChild only works with nodes. You might be better off just appending to innerHTML using something along the lines of a.innerHTML += f.innerHTML.
You should also be sure to move the getSuggestedAuthors function out of the loop. It works ok as it is, but it's much better form not to declare functions inside a loop.
If you only need to support chrome then all of the handy methods on the Array.prototype should exist :)
var a = document.createElement('div');
a.innerHTML = 'List of names from this page';
document.body.appendChild(a);
function getSuggestedAuthors(elements) {
for (var d = 0; d < elements.length; d++) {
a.appendChild(document.createTextNode(elements[d].innerText));//append loop items text to a
}
}
['user', 'username', 'fullname', 'profile-field', 'author', 'screen-name'].map(function(cls) {
return document.getElementsByClassName(cls);
}).forEach(getSuggestedAuthors);

removing all option of dropdown box in javascript

How can i dynamically remove all options of a drop down box in javascript?
document.getElementById('id').options.length = 0;
or
document.getElementById('id').innerHTML = "";
var select = document.getElementById('yourSelectBox');
while (select.firstChild) {
select.removeChild(select.firstChild);
}
Setting the length to 0 is probably the best way, but you can also do this:
var mySelect = document.getElementById("select");
var len = mySelect.length;
for (var i = 0; i < len; i++) {
mySelect.remove(0);
}
<select id="thing"><option>fdsjl</option></select>
<script>
var el = document.getElementById('thing');
el.innerHTML = '';
// or this
while ( el.firstChild ) {
el.removeChild( el.firstChild )
}
</script>
Its very easy using JavaScript and DOM:
while (selectBox.firstChild)
selectBox.removeChild(selectBox.firstChild);
The fastest solution I was able to find is the following code (taken from this article):
// Fast javascript function to clear all the options in an HTML select element
// Provide the id of the select element
// References to the old <select> object will become invalidated!
// This function returns a reference to the new select object.
function ClearOptionsFast(id)
{
var selectObj = document.getElementById(id);
var selectParentNode = selectObj.parentNode;
var newSelectObj = selectObj.cloneNode(false); // Make a shallow copy
selectParentNode.replaceChild(newSelectObj, selectObj);
return newSelectObj;
}
There is simple and elegant way to do this:
for(var o of document.querySelectorAll('#id > option')) {
o.remove()
}

Is there a way to loop through all fields in a fieldset?

I would like to change the class for all the fields in a specific fieldset.
Is there a way to loop through the fields in a fieldset?
You can use getElementsByTagName.
var fieldset= document.getElementById('something');
var fieldtags= ['input', 'textarea', 'select', 'button'];
for (var tagi= fieldtags.length; tagi-->0) {
var fields= fieldset.getElementsByTagName(fieldtags[tagi]);
for (var fieldi= fields.length; fieldi-->0;) {
fields[fieldi].className= 'hello';
}
}
(If you only care about input fields, you could lose the outer tag loop.)
If you needed them in document order (rather than grouped by tag) you'd have to walk over the elements manually, which will be a pain and a bit slow. You could use fieldset.querySelectorAll('input, textarea, select, button'), but not all browsers support that yet. (In particular, IE6-7 predate it.)
Using jQuery (yay!):
$('#fieldset-id :input').each(function(index,element) {
//element is the specific field:
$(element).doSomething();
});
Note the solution below is for NON-JQUERY Implementations.
Implement a getElementsByClassName Method like this:
After you implement the code below you can then use document.getElementsByClassName("elementsInFieldSetClass") it will return an array of the elements with that class.
function initializeGetElementsByClassName ()
{
if (document.getElementsByClassName == undefined) {
document.getElementsByClassName = function(className)
{
var hasClassName = new RegExp("(?:^|\\s)" + className + "(?:$|\\s)");
var allElements = document.getElementsByTagName("*");
var results = [];
var element;
for (var i = 0; (element = allElements[i]) != null; i++) {
var elementClass = element.className;
if (elementClass && elementClass.indexOf(className) != -1 && hasClassName.test(elementClass))
results.push(element);
}
return results;
}
}
}
window.onload = function () {
initializeGetElementsByClassName();
};
Another jQuery solution here.
If you are simply adding a class(es) to the elements, it's this simple:
$('fieldset :input').addClass('newClass');
.addClass() (like many other jQuery functions) will work on all of the elements that match the selector.
Example: http://jsfiddle.net/HANSG/8/
Permanently? Find & replace in your editor of choice.
When the user clicks something? jQuery way:
$('fieldset <selector>').each(function() {
$(this).removeClass('old').addClass('new');
});

Remove All Nodes with (nodeName = "script") from a Document Fragment *before placing it in dom*

My goal is to remove all <[script]> nodes from a document fragment (leaving the rest of the fragment intact) before inserting the fragment into the dom.
My fragment is created by and looks something like this:
range = document.createRange();
range.selectNode(document.getElementsByTagName("body").item(0));
documentFragment = range.cloneContents();
sasDom.insertBefore(documentFragment, credit);
document.body.appendChild(documentFragment);
I got good range walker suggestions in a separate post, but realized I asked the wrong question. I got an answer about ranges, but what I meant to ask about was a document fragment (or perhaps there's a way to set a range of the fragment? hrmmm). The walker provided was:
function actOnElementsInRange(range, func) {
function isContainedInRange(el, range) {
var elRange = range.cloneRange();
elRange.selectNode(el);
return range.compareBoundaryPoints(Range.START_TO_START, elRange) <= 0
&& range.compareBoundaryPoints(Range.END_TO_END, elRange) >= 0;
}
var rangeStartElement = range.startContainer;
if (rangeStartElement.nodeType == 3) {
rangeStartElement = rangeStartElement.parentNode;
}
var rangeEndElement = range.endContainer;
if (rangeEndElement.nodeType == 3) {
rangeEndElement = rangeEndElement.parentNode;
}
var isInRange = function(el) {
return (el === rangeStartElement || el === rangeEndElement ||
isContainedInRange(el, range))
? NodeFilter.FILTER_ACCEPT : NodeFilter.FILTER_SKIP;
};
var container = range.commonAncestorContainer;
if (container.nodeType != 1) {
container = container.parentNode;
}
var walker = document.createTreeWalker(document,
NodeFilter.SHOW_ELEMENT, isInRange, false);
while (walker.nextNode()) {
func(walker.currentNode);
}
}
actOnElementsInRange(range, function(el) {
el.removeAttribute("id");
});
That walker code is lifted from: Remove All id Attributes from nodes in a Range of Fragment
PLEASE No libraries (ie jQuery). I want to do this the raw way. Thanks in advance for your help
The easiest way to gather all <script> nodes would be to use getElementsByTagName, but unfortunately that is not implemented on DocumentFragment.
However, you could create a temporary container and append all elements within the fragment, and then go through and remove all <script> elements, like so:
var temp = document.createElement('div');
while (documentFragment.firstChild)
temp.appendChild(documentFragment.firstChild);
var scripts = temp.getElementsByTagName('script');
var length = scripts.length;
while (length--)
scripts[length].parentNode.removeChild(scripts[length]);
// Add elements back to fragment:
while (temp.firstChild)
documentFragment.appendChild(temp.firstChild);
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the documentFragment is a real DOM Fragment, you should be able to do something like:
var scripts = documentFragment.getElementsByTagName('script');
if (scripts.length){
for (var i=0, l = scripts.length;i<l;i++){
documentFragment.removeChild(scripts[i]);
}
}
right?
Correction: you can't apply getElementsByTagName to a documentFragment, J-P is right. You can however us a child of the fragment if it is a (cloned) node supporting getElementsByTagName. Here's some (working) code I use within a larger script a few days ago:
var fragment = d.createDocumentFragment(), f;
fragment.appendChild(document.createElement('div'));
fragment.firstChild.appendChild(zoeklijst.cloneNode(true));
f = fragment.firstChild;
return f.getElementsByTagName(getList); //<==
2022, Chrome, querySelector family works on document fragments:
frag.content.querySelectorAll('script').forEach(
(s)=>s.remove()
);

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