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colecmc
colecmc

Reputation: 3318

SCRIPT5007 Unable To get value of the property 'indexOf'

I need help resolving this error in IE9: "SCRIPT5007 Unable To get value of the property 'indexOf': object is null or undefined"

findParent = function (father, str, prop) {
    /**
     * Go up the DOM tree and find the parent element with the specified class or prop name.
     * @param {Object} father - (HTMLElement)
     * @param {String} str - the class of the father
     * @param {string} prop - some other property such as name or id
     * @example var parentEl = findParent(container, 'genericForm', 'name');
     */
    'use strict';

    if (prop === undefined || typeof prop !== 'string') {
        prop = 'className';
    }

    while ((father !== undefined || typeof father !== 'string' || father !== null) && (father = father.parentElement) && !(father[prop].indexOf(str) >= 0));

    return father;
};

var container = document.getElementById('description');
var parentEl = findParent(container, 'gForm', 'name');
alert(parentEl);
<form action="/gform.html" class="campaign-forms" method="post" name="gForm">

    <fieldset class="fieldset" title="Type your question...">
        <textarea name="description" id="description" placeholder="Type your question..." data-ana-label="Type your question..."></textarea>
        <small class="error"><i class="close">×</i> This is a required field</small>
    </fieldset>

</form>

I expect it to return the <form> in this instance. Please help.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1192

Answers (1)

Teemu
Teemu

Reputation: 23406

It appears, that there's a difference between browsers. When father[prop] is not explicitly defined, IE returns undefined, other browsers seem to return an empty string.

To fix this you can detect undefined and replace it with an empty string, something like this:

findParent = function (father, str, prop) {
    'use strict';

    if (prop === undefined || typeof prop !== 'string') {
        prop = 'className';
    }

    while (father && (father = father.parentElement) && !((father[prop] || '').indexOf(str) >= 0));
                                                          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
    return father;
};

A live demo at jsFiddle.

(I've just simplified the condition a bit, you can use the original father-exists-detection if you want.)

Upvotes: 1

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