Finding last node

[JonQuark]

Hi,

I suspect this is a common question but I've read the FAQ and searched
the archives and couldn't find it. In a script embedded in the body of
the page I want to quickly find the last node that was created and
appendChild nodes to it. I can't just use document.body.a ppendChild as
the last node is likely to be a grandchild or great-grandchild of body.
I know that I could document.write an element with an id and then
getElementById but this slow and clunky, there must be a faster way,
document.write( ) knows where to put its output.

In case I've not made myself clear:
[...inside an HTML document...]
Some text
<script>text=do cument.createTe xtNode("DOM");</script>
<table>
<tr>
<td>elem 1</td>
<td>elem
2<script>docume nt.write("locat ion");document. body.appendChil d(text);</script></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>elem 3</td>
<td>elem 4</td>
</tr>
</table>
[...end of snippet...]
I'd like to replace document.body with something that would make the
text DOM appear after location rather than after the table and not
depend on the containing td having an id that I getElementById for.

Any help appreciated,

Jon.

[Martin Honnen]

JonQuark wrote:

I suspect this is a common question but I've read the FAQ and searched
the archives and couldn't find it. In a script embedded in the body of
the page I want to quickly find the last node that was created and
appendChild nodes to it. I can't just use document.body.a ppendChild as
the last node is likely to be a grandchild or great-grandchild of body.
I know that I could document.write an element with an id and then
getElementById but this slow and clunky, there must be a faster way,
document.write( ) knows where to put its output.

In case I've not made myself clear:
[...inside an HTML document...]
Some text
<script>text=do cument.createTe xtNode("DOM");</script>
<table>
<tr>
<td>elem 1</td>
<td>elem
2<script>docume nt.write("locat ion");document. body.appendChil d(text);</script></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>elem 3</td>
<td>elem 4</td>
</tr>
</table>
[...end of snippet...]
I'd like to replace document.body with something that would make the
text DOM appear after location rather than after the table and not
depend on the containing td having an id that I getElementById for.

It is a bit tricky, if you have a script that is executed during page
load and wants to insert content during page load then if the browser
plays nice you could assume that document.getEle mentsByTagName( 'script')
can be used to find the current <script> element as the last script
element in that collection and then you can use appendChild on its
parentNode to insert content at the correct position.

I have made the following test case:
<http://home.arcor.de/martin.honnen/mozillaBugs/domInsertionDur ingPageLoad/docWriteMixAppe ndChild.html>
It shows that mixing document.write of pure text with appendChild leads
to inconsistent behavior in different browsers (tested with IE 6,
Netscape 7.2, Opera 7.50) so if you really think you need to use DOM
Core stuff like appendChild during page load then do not mix it with
document.write of pure text, the order of dynamically inserted content
would then differ depending on the browser.

But of course there could be other browsers where even the strategy of
appending to the parentNode of the last script element doesn't yield the
desired behavior, perhaps some Safari or Konqueror users can report what
the test case does for them.
--

Martin Honnen
http://JavaScript.FAQTs.com/

[Fred Oz]

Martin Honnen wrote:
[...]

But of course there could be other browsers where even the strategy of
appending to the parentNode of the last script element doesn't yield the
desired behavior, perhaps some Safari or Konqueror users can report what
the test case does for them.

Count sequence for Safari 1.0.3 (Mac OS 10.2.8):

1,2 ... 12,14,13,15 ... 25,27,26,28 .
Hope that helps.

--
Fred

[Martin Honnen]

Fred Oz wrote:

Martin Honnen wrote:

perhaps some Safari or Konqueror users can
report what the test case does for them.

Count sequence for Safari 1.0.3 (Mac OS 10.2.8):

1,2 ... 12,14,13,15 ... 25,27,26,28 .

Thanks, so Safari exhibits the same problematic combination,
document.write of pure text mixed with appendChild seems to change the
sequence.
--

Martin Honnen
http://JavaScript.FAQTs.com/

[Jon Levell]

Hi Martin,

Thank you very much for your informative reply. I had considered
getElementByTag Name but the application I'm working on is already
pushing Javascript quite hard and such a script would be embedded
literally hundreds of times inside a single big page. Building the array
of scripts in each script will be a very slow process. I was hoping that
there was going to be a variable perhaps called something like
document.curren tNode that is updated as the page is created.

Thanks again for your help.

Jon.
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[Evertjan.]

Jon Levell wrote on 13 feb 2005 in comp.lang.javas cript:

Thank you very much for your informative reply. I had considered
getElementByTag Name but the application I'm working on is already
pushing Javascript quite ...

Please either answer with email, or if you answer on usenet, quote the
essentials of the posting you are answering on.

Netiquette is sensible.

--
Evertjan.
The Netherlands.
(Replace all crosses with dots in my emailaddress)

[Martin Honnen]

Jon Levell wrote:

the application I'm working on is already
pushing Javascript quite hard and such a script would be embedded
literally hundreds of times inside a single big page. Building the array
of scripts in each script will be a very slow process.
Well with the DOM collections are live so as the example page
demonstrates you only need to call
document.getEle mentsByTagName( 'script') once, the DOM implementation
then takes care of updating the collection automatically without any
need to call again. But of course that automatic updating will also take
time if you have hundreds of script elements.
I was hoping that
there was going to be a variable perhaps called something like
document.curren tNode that is updated as the page is created.

I don't think the W3C DOM has anything like that as it is not really
concerned with script manipulating the DOM tree while it is built.
And I don't know of any browser exposing such a property.

--

Martin Honnen
http://JavaScript.FAQTs.com/