Problem with document.write and amperands

[Monte Gardner]

At my company, we have a javascript function that uses document.write()
calls to create an INPUT tag with type set to "image". The image that
it is downloading comes from a dynamic image server, so it has lots of
stuff in the query string, including ampersands. The image that I'm
getting in my web page as a result of this call is not configured
correctly. After some investigation, I've found that the
document.write() call seems to be encoding the & into its entity
reference, an amperand followed by amp;. Normally, this would be
desired, but in this case, I actually need an ampersand.

For complicated reasons, I may not be able to change the function
itself, so I tried to modify the DOM structure itself with the
following code:

rExp = /&/gi;
newString = new String(buttons[index].src);
newString.replace(rExp, "&");
buttons[index].src = newString;
alert(buttons[index].src);
The message of the alert shows a changed URL - the amp; is gone.
However, the image itself doesnt change. I get similar results in
current versions of IE and Netscape. It appears that changing the
source attribute of an input object doesn't cause a reload of the image
itself, like it would for an image object.

Any suggestions?

[Jukka K. Korpela]

"Monte Gardner" <Mo***********@asu.edu> wrote:

At my company, we have a javascript function that uses
document.write() calls to create an INPUT tag with type set to
"image".
Using image submit buttons is usually a bad idea. It means trying hard
to avoid the simple and robust and useable way, for the sake of assumed
esthetics. (Besides, for some odd reason, almost all image submit
buttons are somewhere between ugly and very ugly.)
The image that it is downloading comes from a dynamic
image server, so it has lots of stuff in the query string,
including ampersands.
That's getting rather absurd. Or is this a one in a million case where
it makes sense to generate the image dynamically? A real map, so that
clicking on it also means selecting a location? And a dynamically
generated map at that?
The image that I'm getting in my web page as
a result of this call is not configured correctly.
I'm not surprised.
After some
investigation, I've found that the document.write() call seems to
be encoding the & into its entity reference, an amperand followed
by amp;.
What makes you think so?
Normally, this would be desired, but in this case, I
actually need an ampersand.
Using &amp; _is_ the way (well, a way; you could use & too) of
getting an ampersand in HTML.
For complicated reasons, I may not be able to change the function
itself, so I tried to modify the DOM structure itself

Stop digging deeper. Climb up.

What is the original problem? What is the URL?

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
Pages about Web authoring: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www.html

[Safalra]

Monte Gardner wrote:

At my company, we have a javascript function that uses document.write() calls to create an INPUT tag with type set to "image". The image that it is downloading comes from a dynamic image server, so it has lots of stuff in the query string, including ampersands.
[snip]
After some investigation, I've found that the
document.write() call seems to be encoding the & into its entity
reference, an amperand followed by amp;. Normally, this would be
desired, but in this case, I actually need an ampersand.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but surely ampersands in URLs *should* be
escaped as &amp;? (Remember all the confusion caused in old versions of
Netscape when people used things like manual.php?page=1&section=8 -
Netscape interpreted &sect as &sect;.)

--
Safalra (Stephen Morley)
http://www.safalra.com/hypertext/