Firefox error obj.style has no properties

[danellison]

Greetings all. If only I was a little braver I would just shoot myself and end my misery but since I am not - please shoot me!!! I mean HELP me :)

Picture a named form with contents defined as follows:

[HTML]
<form name="myform">
<div id="extrawhatever" style="visibility: 'hidden'> <!-- div and select do share -->
<select name="extrawhatever"> <!-- common name/id value -->
<!-- options will be filled in dynamically later -->
</select>
</div>
<input type="text" name="whatever" id="whatever" onfocus="prepmyList();">
...
</form>
[/HTML]

As I understand things, if an form element has focus its container (form) MUST exist in the memory space right??? If I can use getElementById('whatever') on one line of code it should also work on the next line? So now the focus handler contains:

function prepmyList(arg) {
    var x = new getObj('extra'+arg); // ref hidden div from above by id so I can
   // make it visible after it is populated
    ...
}
 
function  getObj(arg) {
    this.obj = document.getElementById(arg);     // THIS WORKS FINE!!!!
    this.style = document.getElementById(arg).style;   // ERROR NO PROPERTIES
    ....
}
 

Note that IE6 and 7 run this just fine. Firefox is the complainer. I am trying to use Firebug to debug another area of my code that is after this point.

This is driving me on the short trip to CRAZY. Anybody got a grip on it? Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.

Impeach the whole government!
Dan Ellison

[iam_clint]

try

this.style = document.getElementById(arg).style;

to
this.style = this.obj.style;


and it may be something silly like firefox may not take .style as a whole but it prolly wants individual styles

this.style.width = this.obj.style.width;

[danellison]

try

this.style = document.getElementById(arg).style;

to
this.style = this.obj.style;


and it may be something silly like firefox may not take .style as a whole but it prolly wants individual styles

this.style.width = this.obj.style.width;

Thanks for the suggestions Clint. The first approach you are suggesting I don't think will work because the context of the object is such that a reference to "this" outside of the constructor will be an undefined object (or am I off track with that?)

The way the objects are used is such that I don't think that the style attribute is a subset of obj....

The later explanation is probably right on for firefox. It might be seeing this.style as an incomplete specification. This crossplatform stuff can be maddening! I do appreciate the assistance and I will see if I can make use of the suggestions.

Thanks,
Dan

[pbmods]

function  getObj(arg) {
    this.obj = document.getElementById(arg);     // THIS WORKS FINE!!!!
    this.style = document.getElementById(arg).style;   // ERROR NO PROPERTIES
    ....
}
 

How about this, then:

function  getObj(arg) {
    var $theObj = document.getElementById(arg);
    this.obj = $theObj;
    this.style = $theObj.style;
    ....
}