Develop Reference

How to assign HTML text to a JavaScript variable?

Is it possible to assign HTML text within an element to a JavaScript variable? After much Googling, I note that you can assign HTML elements to a variable, but I want the actual text itself.
Details about my goal:
I am currently working on a CRUD application, and with the click of a delete button, a modal will display and ask the user for confirmation before deleting the record. Once the button has been clicked, I want to retrieve HTML text within a specific element used for AJAX call data. However, what I have tried so far is not being logged to the console; even when I change the global variable to var deleteLocationID = "test"; I doubt the modal displaying will affect the click function?
The code:
var deleteLocationID;
$("#deleteLocationBtn").click(function () {
deleteLocationID = $(document).find(".locationID").val();
console.log(deleteLocationID);
});
What I have tried so far:
Changing "deleteLocationID = $(document).find(".locationID").val();" to the following variations:
deleteLocationID = $(document).find(".locationID").html();
deleteLocationID = $(".locationID").val() / deleteLocationID = $(".locationID").html();
deleteLocationID = document.getElementsByClassName("locationID").value;
Any help would be much appreciated.

Use the text() method from JQuery, with this you can get the text inside of your element.
Use this way, it may help you:
deleteLocationID = $(document).find(".locationID").text()
Here is example of getting text from class element:
$('.locationID').text()
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.12.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
<div class="locationID">45</div>

It depends on the type of element you are trying to find your value.
for input types you can find the value by .val() in jQuery like:
$(document).find(".locationID").val();
you can grab innerHTML of the element by .html() in jQuery like:
$(".locationID").html();
but if you want to grab innerText of an element you can use .text() in jQuery like:
$(".locationID").text();

Creating dynamic divs

Trying to make a dynamic div but i don't know how. Wrote a solidity smart contract that accepts an array of struct. In the smart contract i can use a get function to display the data inside. Data in the array is treated like a history, it consists of amount (making a crowdfund site), date, currency used, etc. Since the get function in the smart contract can only extract one part of the array, i thought of putting the get function into the while loop and extract the whole history array..
<div id=set>
<a>value1</a>
<a>value2</a>
</div>
I'm trying to dynamically create another div with the same amount of < a > in the div. If i had 10 sets of data to display in that div, i wish to create only 10 sets of that div. Can createElement() be used to do that? Couldn't find any solution that works. Totally have no idea on how to create it. Can someone please help.
Would it be rational to extract the data from the array using a while loop and putting it in a div to display or would it use too much gas for this to work?

I don't get why would you want to do this, but you can do like this:
$('#set a').each(function(){
$('#set').after( "<div></div>");
});
It selects all of the <a>...</a> inside the <div id="set">...</div> element, and for each one of those inserts a <div></div> element. It inserts the element right next to #set but you can change that to any other element you could select.
I'm supplying jQuery code since you tagged the question as jQuery.
Hope it helps,

You can get the number of anchor tags by using this function getElementsByTagName('a').length from the hosting div. Then use that number to create new divs. This solution is done using vanilla JS.
function createDynamicDivs(){
var newDiv = document.createElement("div");
var noOfAnchors = document.getElementById('set').getElementsByTagName('a').length;
for(var i=0;i<noOfAnchors;i++){
var newContent = document.createElement("a");
newContent.textContent= "Test ";
newDiv.appendChild(newContent);
}
document.getElementById('new').appendChild(newDiv);
}
<div id=set>
<a>value1</a>
<a>value2</a>
</div>
<div id="new"></div>
<button onclick="createDynamicDivs()">Generate</button>

jQuery break out of table

I have a standard HTML formatted table, that dynamically generates the content, via Zend Framework. From which I have an issue altering the form internally PHP side. So I need to alter the tables appearance somehow. With that on the occasion I have an element show up in one of the rows and when this element shows up I want to break out of the table and then do something after it then start the table again.
Basically I want to inject the equivlant of
</tbody></table>/*other stuff*/<table><tbody> after the row containing the one element I seek which in this case is a label.
I tried $("label[for='theLable']").parents('tr').after('</tbody></table><br><table><tbody>') which appears to ignore the ending table parts add the br, and then does a complete open/close tag for table and tbody within the same table I am trying to break out of so inbetween tr tags basically it adds this new table
Whats the best way to approach this concept?
update with jsfiddle link
http://jsfiddle.net/cPWDh/

You can't really modify the HTML of the document the way you're thinking, since it's not a legitimate way to alter the DOM.
Instead, I would create a new table and .append the rows you want to move to it, which will automatically move them from their current location (instead of copying them):
$(document).ready(function() {
var $trow = $('label[for="specialLabel"]').closest('tr'),
$table = $trow.closest('table');
$('<table>').append( $trow.nextAll().andSelf() ).insertAfter($table);
});​
http://jsfiddle.net/cPWDh/1/

this approach won't work in js. What you could do if the table has not too many rows is this:
var nextTable = $("table").after("/*other stuff*/<table id="nextTable"></table>");
//now you loop over the lines of your original table that you want to have after the "break", and move them to the nextTable:
var before = true;
$("table tr").each(function(){
if ($(this).has("[for='theLable']")) {
before = false;
}
if (!before) {
nextTable.append($(this));
}
});

How insert an input field in a table cell?

Sorry for the noob question: I want to create a table with input fields where the can add new ones, if they are needed. But I can'T figure out how add another input field inside a cell where another input field already exists.
My code is:
var par=obj.parentNode;
while(par.nodeName.toLowerCase()!='tr')
{ par=par.parentNode; }
// this gives me the index of the row.. works fine.
cell1=document.getElementById('avz_tabelle').rows[par.rowIndex].cells;
// this puts the content of the cells into the array "cell1"
var feld = cell1[1].createElement("input");
feld.setAttribute("name","avz_keywords" + avz_array + "[]");
feld.setAttribute("onblur","");
feld.setAttribute("type","text");
feld.setAttribute("size","30");
// Now I create a input element
// And now comes the problem:
cell1[1].appendChild(feld); // --> doesn't work
Has anyone a suggestion for me?
I got the idea to work without a table, theoratically that would work with my way. But that wouldn't be satisfying :/

If you look in a debugging console, you should see something like
TypeError: Object #<HTMLDivElement> has no method 'createElement'
Instead of creating the element from cell1[1], use document.createElement()
var feld = document.createElement("input");

You should use document.createElement("input"); instead of cell1[1].createElement("input");
As always (and as also stated in another answer here), the JavaScript console should be the first place to look for hints on what the problem is!
And wouldn't it actually be much easier if each table cell you want to add values to got a separate ID? Something containing perhaps the row index and the column index ... Then you could just select it directly.

Put focus on XUL textbox

I'm doing a Firefox extension. The extension has a sidebar. In this sidebar, I created some textboxes dynamically. How I can put the focus on the last textbox that I created?
This is the code, I want to put the focus in the textbox "userResponse" . The textbox is a XUL element.
var textResponse= document.createElement("textbox");
textResponse.setAttribute("id", "userResponse");
textResponse.setAttribute("class", "question");
textResponse.setAttribute("title", "Type your question here");
textResponse.onkeypress = numberOfResults;
textResponse.focus("");
var trResponse = document.createElement("tr");
var tdResponse = document.createElement("td");
tdResponse.appendChild(textResponse);
trResponse.appendChild(tdResponse);
tableQuestion.appendChild(trResponse);
I tried it with document.getElementById("userResponse").focus() but it doesn't work.

Calling textResponse.focus() is the correct way - but without parameters and after adding this element to the document. You can retrieve that element again of course by using document.getElementById() - but same thing there, you should do it after the element has been added to the document.