Christopher Benson-Manica wrote:
I appreciate all the responses to my earlier post about accessing
named elements. However, I'm still wondering about my actual problem,
which is that I need to initialize some arrays of named elements when
the document is loaded so they can be used by other functions used as
event handlers. What I have now is that every function that requires
these arrays checks to see whether they have been initialized, and if
not initializes them. That seems to be a fairly ugly hack, and I'd
like to use a better way if it exists. Does that make sense?
How about creating an initArray() function and running it with
the body onload event?
Testing to make sure something exists or has a suitable value is not
a 'hack' but rather good practice that should ensure more robust
code.
I would:
1. Declare the array right at the very top of the page so I know it
exists.
2. Create a function that fills the array from a body onload event,
then I know it will only run after the elements have been created.
3. For each script that needs to use the array, check the length
right at the start and return (maybe with some error value) if the
length is zero.
If the array is created separately to scripts that use it,
always check that it exists because scripts (say one activated by an
onclick) may be triggered before the page finishes loading.
All that is required to test for the array is something like:
if (!eleArray || 0 == eleArray.length) {return;}
Here's a skeleton of what is proposed above:
<head><title> blah </title>
<script type="text/javascript">
var eleArray = [];
function someFunction(){
if (!eleArray || 0 == eleArray.length) {return;}
// rest of function...
}
function initEleArray(){
var i,j,k,x;
for (i=0, j=arguments.length; i<j; i++){
x = document.getElementsByName(arguments[i]);
k = x.length;
while (k--) { eleArray.push(x[k]); }
}
}
</script>
</head>
<body onload="initEleArray('name1','name2',...);" ...>
--
Rob
