document.elementname vs document.getElementById("id")

From	Denis McMahon <denismfmcmahon@gmail.com>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.javascript
Subject	document.elementname vs document.getElementById("id")
Date	2012-09-29 18:15 +0000
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<k47drn$q7j$1@dont-email.me> (permalink)

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Gaaah

I'm fairly certain there's a reason that I think this is a "bad" idea ... 
apart from anything else an element name parameter is not guaranteed to 
be unique within a document - but I haven't easily been able to find a 
suitable reference for why not to do this, anyone got one?

I'm arguing to replace using document.formname to identify forms with 
assigning an id to the forms involved and using document.getElementById
("formid").*, but the best arguments I can think of at the moment (more 
robust to future changes, better compatibility with developing standards, 
more maintainable) are butting up against "don't fix it until it needs 
fixing", whereas I prefer to prevent future breakage, rather than react 
to it.

I'm pretty certain that using document.getElementById("id") is better 
than using document.elementname, but at the moment I'm having trouble 
pointing to any sort of authoritative reference for this.

[1] It was document.all.formname which was breaking, a very senior coder 
(but not actually a web / js coder) "fixed" it by changing 
document.all.formname to document.formname, but I think the fix is almost 
as prone to future breakage as the original code was, and would prefer to 
see document.getElementById("formid") used instead, with approriate IDs 
allocated to forms.

Rgds

Denis McMahon

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document.elementname vs document.getElementById("id") Denis McMahon <denismfmcmahon@gmail.com> - 2012-09-29 18:15 +0000
  Re: document.elementname vs document.getElementById("id") Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2012-09-29 22:17 +0200
  Re: document.elementname vs document.getElementById("id") dann90038@gmail.com - 2012-09-29 16:21 -0700
  Re: document.elementname vs document.getElementById("id") "J.R." <groups_jr-1@yahoo.com.br> - 2012-09-29 23:20 -0300
    Re: document.elementname vs document.getElementById("id") "J.R." <groups_jr-1@yahoo.com.br> - 2012-09-29 19:53 -0700
    Re: document.elementname vs document.getElementById("id") "Jukka K. Korpela" <jkorpela@cs.tut.fi> - 2012-09-30 11:02 +0300
      Re: document.elementname vs document.getElementById("id") Denis McMahon <denismfmcmahon@gmail.com> - 2012-09-30 13:10 +0000
      Re: document.elementname vs document.getElementById("id") Denis McMahon <denismfmcmahon@gmail.com> - 2012-09-30 13:14 +0000
        Re: document.elementname vs document.getElementById("id") "Jukka K. Korpela" <jkorpela@cs.tut.fi> - 2012-09-30 17:20 +0300
          Re: document.elementname vs document.getElementById("id") Eric Bednarz <bednarz@fahr-zur-hoelle.org> - 2012-09-30 21:09 +0200
            Re: document.elementname vs document.getElementById("id") "Jukka K. Korpela" <jkorpela@cs.tut.fi> - 2012-09-30 22:28 +0300
              Re: document.elementname vs document.getElementById("id") Eric Bednarz <bednarz@fahr-zur-hoelle.org> - 2012-09-30 21:53 +0200
            Re: document.elementname vs document.getElementById("id") Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2012-09-30 21:53 +0200
          Re: document.elementname vs document.getElementById("id") Denis McMahon <denismfmcmahon@gmail.com> - 2012-09-30 22:07 +0000
            Re: document.elementname vs document.getElementById("id") "Jukka K. Korpela" <jkorpela@cs.tut.fi> - 2012-10-01 06:23 +0300
              Re: document.elementname vs document.getElementById("id") Denis McMahon <denismfmcmahon@gmail.com> - 2012-10-01 08:11 +0000
                Re: document.elementname vs document.getElementById("id") Stefan Weiss <krewecherl@gmail.com> - 2012-10-01 11:25 +0200
      Re: document.elementname vs document.getElementById("id") "J.R." <groups_jr-1@yahoo.com.br> - 2012-09-30 15:10 -0300
        Re: document.elementname vs document.getElementById("id") Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2012-09-30 20:43 +0200
    Re: document.elementname vs document.getElementById("id") Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2012-09-30 12:22 +0200
      Re: document.elementname vs document.getElementById("id") "Jukka K. Korpela" <jkorpela@cs.tut.fi> - 2012-09-30 13:44 +0300
        Re: document.elementname vs document.getElementById("id") Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2012-09-30 13:46 +0200
  Re: document.elementname vs document.getElementById("id") Dr J R Stockton <reply1239@merlyn.demon.co.uk.invalid> - 2012-09-30 20:10 +0100

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