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Message-ID: <1460484.mR14RZRZF0@PointedEars.de>
From: Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de>
Reply-To: Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <cljs@PointedEars.de>
Organization: PointedEars Software (PES)
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2011 11:50:06 +0100
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Subject: Re: Changing letters in boxes
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RobG wrote:

> Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:
>> A safer approach is to remove all cells of the row except one, then
>> replace the content of the first cell and add more cells:
>>
>> var tr = document.getElementById("box");
>> var firstChild = tr.firstChild;
>> while (tr.lastChild != firstChild)
>> {
>> tr.removeNode(tr.lastChild);
>> }
>>
>> tr.cells[0].innerHTML = a;
> 
> You seem to be assuming here that the firstChild of the tr will be a
> cell (TD or TH), when it may be a text node:

ACK

> […]
> To get the first cell, better to be explicit:
> 
>     var firstCell = tr.cells[0];

ACK

> An alternative is getElementsByTagName('td')[0], but the cells can be
> TH or TD, using the cells collection deals with both.

A viable alternative alternative are the `firstElementChild' and 
`lastElementCild' properties if they are available.

> [...]
>> When all you know is jQuery, every problem looks $olvable.
> 
> <grin> is that one of yours?

Yes :)  It occurred to me when reading from John-David Dalton (@jdalton, on 
Twitter) that the jQuery Standards Group (sic!) he recently joined is going 
to suggest adding Array methods to NodeLists because they see so much 
[].forEach.call(hostObject) etc. these days.  Of course, my answer was – the 
fact aside that this would make the DOM API language-dependent – that in a 
well-developed Web application you seldom ever need [].….call(hostObject) to 
begin with.

> 1. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms533897%28v=VS.85%29.aspx

Thanks a lot, for some reason I had to rely on long-forgotten table-
scripting experience with MSHTML and third-party information regarding this.  
It is acceptable to see this quirk being officially documented at last.

In fact, when you read on to [1] they are saying in the "Creating and 
Manipulating Tables" section that the `innerHTML' and `innerText' properties 
are *read-only* for `table' and `tr' objects, which makes kind of 
Microsoftish sense considering the quirks and their proprietary table object 
model.  This would mean it is not only unwise to use `innerHTML' there, but 
that it was functionally impossible.


PointedEars
___________
[1] <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms532998(VS.85).aspx>
-- 
var bugRiddenCrashPronePieceOfJunk = (
    navigator.userAgent.indexOf('MSIE 5') != -1
    && navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Mac') != -1
)  // Plone, register_function.js:16