CSS "id" and "class" syntax in javascript

BobBlock · #1 July 6th, 2009, 07:57 PM

I have a box defined like this:

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 <div id="shadow-container1">

<div class="shadow1">

<div class="shadow2">

<div class="shadow3">

<div class="container">

the innermost "container" is where content appears.

I have to pass the id of "container" to the javascript variable parameter
"target":

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var countries=new ddajaxtabs("source", "target")

How do I replace "target" with the full id of "container", that is what would the correct syntax for "target" be?

I tried many variations but could not come up with one that works, tho this must be a simple one for the experts here.

acoder · #2 July 7th, 2009, 11:08 AM

If it's as you've described, it should be "shadow-container1". If that doesn't work, give a link to the Ajax-tab code that you're using.

BobBlock · #3 July 7th, 2009, 01:53 PM

acoder,

As "target" has to resolve to "#shadow-container1 .container", the # alone does not work.

I don't understand what you mean by "give a link to the Ajax-tab code that you're using".

acoder · #4 July 7th, 2009, 02:02 PM

I did a quick search and found that you're using the Dynamic Drive Ajax Tabs. OK, you need to pass the ID, so the easiest way is to give the container a unique ID:

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<div class="container" id="container">

and pass that ID.

BobBlock · #5 July 7th, 2009, 04:59 PM

So I gave every div in the group a unique ID, doing away with the "class"es alltogether. This made the script happy!

Does this mean id+class combinations cannot be used in JS in general, or is this peculiar to the script in question?

Thank you and cheers.

acoder · #6 July 7th, 2009, 05:44 PM

They can be used together, but the script required a unique ID. IDs are unique whereas classes are not. Sometimes you want some CSS rule/script to apply to a set of elements, so you use one class for all of them, but you also want to refer to a particular element for some rule and giving a unique ID makes sure of that. You can refer to a particular element without IDs, e.g. by using getElementsByClassName() and then indexing the correct one, but in this case, that wouldn't have worked.

rnd me · #7 July 8th, 2009, 10:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BobBlock

So I gave every div in the group a unique ID, doing away with the "class"es alltogether. This made the script happy!

Does this mean id+class combinations cannot be used in JS in general, or is this peculiar to the script in question?

Thank you and cheers.

jQuery supports mixed searches just like css.