CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptajaxxmlnodeselement
smartmouse
smartmouse

Reputation: 14404

How to use childNodes for XML document?

i created the following javascript:

<script>
    function stats(cod) {
        var th = document.getElementsByTagName("th");
        var tds = document.getElementsByClassName("pt");

        httpRequest = new XMLHttpRequest();
        httpRequest.onreadystatechange = function() {
            if (httpRequest.readyState == 4 && httpRequest.status == 200) {
                var xmlDoc = httpRequest.responseXML.documentElement;

                th[0].innerHTML = xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName('name')[0].firstChild.nodeValue;
                tds[0].innerHTML = xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName('what')[0].firstChild.nodeValue;
                tds[1].innerHTML = xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName('office')[0].firstChild.nodeValue;
                tds[2].innerHTML = xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName('www')[0].firstChild.nodeValue;
                tds[3].innerHTML = xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName('over')[0].firstChild.nodeValue;
            }
        }
        httpRequest.open("GET","getData.php?codice=" + cod, true);
        httpRequest.send(null);
    }
</script>

I'm sure it is a better way to read the XML content and assign its values to the table TDs. I tried to get an array of all elements contained within xmlDoc using xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName('response').childNodes; but the result seems to be undefined.

EDIT:

Here is a sample of the XML:

<response>
    <name>The name</name>
    <what>What is</what>
    <office>The office</office>
    <www>The website</www>
    <over>Yes</over>
</response>

Upvotes: 0

Views: 2910

Answers (2)

Martin Honnen
Martin Honnen

Reputation: 167446

You can easily access the response element as

var response = httpRequest.responseXML.documentElement;

I would then not try to use childNodes as that can include text node between elements while using response.children would give you the child elements, but only in modern browsers. In that case elements also have a textContent property you could use in case of all those firstChild.nodeValue accesses:

var childElements = response.children;

th[0].innerHTML = childElements[0].textContent;
tds[0].innerHTML = childElements[1].textContent;
...

On the other hand once the order of elements in your XML changes or an element is omitted you will read out the wrong data so there is some advantage in using e.g. response.getElementsByTagName('www')[0].textContent to go by the name.

Upvotes: 1

Quentin
Quentin

Reputation: 943108

getElementsByTagName returns an array-like collection of elements.

A specific element (including each member of a collection) may have childNodes. The collection itself won't.

Upvotes: 1

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