getElementsByName works great in netscape, not so for ie?

[joelwenzel]

<div name=tabBody>
stuff
</div>
<div name=tabBody>
stuff
</div>

<script language=javascript>
//this shows 0 in ie and 2 in netscape
alert(document.getElementsByName(&quot;tabBody&quot.length)
</script>

I do not know what the code shows 0 in ie and 2 in netscape

 

[jemminger]

joelwenzel,

I believe getElementsByName() is a NS proprietary function.

======================================

if (!succeed) try();
-jeff

 

[joelwenzel]

I don't think so. IT's part of the DOM model and microsoft list it on the msdn site.

 

[simraja]

use getElementById()

Not sure what this code is supposed to do... but I think it will cause an error. You have two divs with the same name. Is that legal? I didn't think you could get a .length on a div.

I have used this before:

document.getElementById('divname').getElementsByTagName('div').length;

This will report on all of the <div> tags found within another div.

 

[simraja]

OK...

I stand mistaken. I tried getElementsByName() in IE 5.5 and it worked perfectly when checking:

alert(document.getElementsByName(&quot;tabBody&quot.length)

I had two divs named just like yours and it alerted 2.

In Netscape 7 pre release... I got 0. I know this is contrary to what you reported above... but these are the results.

 

[mithrilhall]

Worked for me in IE 6. Try tossing quotes around the name in the div tag.

I used your code and your divs and I got back 0 in Mozilla and 0 in IE6. ====================================
I love people. They taste just like
chicken!

 

[joelwenzel]

thanks. That's interesting that it worked for you with your code but not with mine. I will look further into it and see if I can find some other reason it did not work.

I already created a work around (getElementsByTagName(&quot;DIV&quot and then comparing the name or each item in the returned collection) but I would rather use the getElementsByName. It seems more efficient.

 

[UNIMENT]

IE5.0 has a faulty getElementsByName function. It exists just like it should, and it's a function just like it should be, and running it doesn't give any errors... But the result is wrong: the returned object has NO elements in it, and the length is 0, although it should be 2. Quite an annoying bug, since it takes a while to figure out why it's not working right.

And I wouldn't suggest ignoring that IE5.0 doesn't support it: Most people use IE5.

- UNIMENT