[thelist] DOM - removeNode() problems

[Simon Willison]

Hi Jeff,

Tuesday, August 5, 2003, 4:10:00 AM, you wrote:
> what strikes me as funny is that both methods are practically identical.
> it's too bad there's not a removeChildNodes() method that would clear out
> all children of an object in one method call.

So write one :)

<script type="text/javascript">
Node.prototype.removeChildNodes = function() {
    while (this.childNodes.length > 0) {
        this.removeChild(this.childNodes[0]);
    }
}
</script>

<div id="test">
Aah, <strong>sweet</strong> DOM
</div>

<input type="button" value="click me"
  onclick="document.getElementById('test').removeChildNodes()">

This works fine in Mozilla, which allows you to add methods to the DOM
Node object. IE doesn't expose this, to a more cross browser
compatible version would look like this:

document.removeChildNodes = function(node) {
    while (node.childNodes.length > 0) {
        node.removeChild(node.childNodes[0]);
    }
}

Tested with:

<input type="button" value="click me"
  onclick="document.removeChildNodes(document.getElementById('test'))">

Adding it as a method on the document object isn't really any
different from defining it as a function, but at least it keeps it out
of the global namespace. It's a shame IE doesn't expose the DOM
objects completely or we could have all kinds of fun with this sort of
thing.

Cheers,

Simon
-- 
http://simon.incutio.com/