CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptxmlxml-parsing
Karl Brandenberger
Karl Brandenberger

Reputation: 23

x[i].parentElement.NodeName works on everything but explorer. Why?

I'm parsing through an XML file from an XMLHttpRequest: 

var xhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhttp.onreadystatechange = function() {
  if (this.readyState == 4 && this.status == 200) {      
    loadItems(this);
  }
};
xhttp.open("GET", "articles.xml", true);
xhttp.send();

function loadItems(xml) {
  var xmlDoc = xml.responseXML;
  var items = xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("item");
  for(var i = 0; i < items.length; i++){
    //Next line is where the script crashes...
    var newCategory = articles[i].parentElement.nodeName;
    alert(newCategory);
  }
}

I've tracked down my bug to the line with:

var newCategory = articles[i].parentElement.nodeName;

The XML structure I'm working with:

<head>
   <category>
       <item>
          <title>
             foo
          </title>
          <contents>
             bar
          </contents>
        </item>
   </category>
   <newcategory>
       <item>
          <title>
             left
          </title>
          <contents>
             right
          </contents>
        </item>
   </newcategory>
</head>

This seems to work in every other browser except Internet Explorer where the script silently crashes at this line. In other browsers newCategory will have a string "category" or "newcategory" depending on the parent node of each item.

I've looked at Windows' docs and they say both parentElement and nodeName accessors are supported so why would make the script crash in IE?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 111

Answers (2)

Karl Brandenberger
Karl Brandenberger

Reputation: 23

After doing some research into the Internet Explorer docs, I found that there is a parentNode accessor which will work in Firefox/Chrome/Opera and Explorer. 

var newCategory = articles[i].parentNode.nodeName;

Upvotes: 1

user7506576
user7506576

Reputation:

I had a similar problem. Try using .nodeValue instead of .nodeName.

var newCategory = articles[i].parentElement.nodeValue;

Upvotes: 0

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