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Can firebug tell me the javascript name of an object?

Answer 1

A:

You're question is extremely vague so I can't give you the answer you need.

Objects can't be "activated"/"deactivated" and they don't have "names" (they can have a name property, if that's what you mean).

For example, given:

var foo = {};

foo is a variable that happens to have a value that is an object. The object is not the variable (object having a "name"). Given:

bar = foo; foo = null;

foo is now null and the object that foo held is now stored as bar.

Eli Grey 2009-11-25 23:25:56

Answer 2

A:

You won't be able to do that. The variable name isn't tied to the variable, and they're not passed between functions. The best you could do is write a function to take a string and resolve it back to a variable:

function printVar(name) {
    console.log(name + ": " + window[name]);
}

Of course, there's a lot of things wrong with this. I'd recommend just making two logging calls:

console.log("foo");
console.log(foo);

or, using the printf-style syntax:

console.log("foo: %o", foo);

nickf 2009-11-25 23:30:18

Answer 3

+1 A:

Elements are generally identified using the id attribute. Example:

<input type="submit" id="saveButton" value="Save" />

You can use the getElementById method to get a reference to an element:

var b = document.getElementById('saveButton');
b.value = 'Saving...';

Guffa 2009-11-25 23:31:49

Answer 4

+1 A:

Well since you gave the form.button.value="something" example, I'm guessing you want to control HTML objects. You can assign them an id, e.g.: <form id="my_form"... and then get elements by id from JS, as the function is even called, getElementById().

document.getElementById('my_form').button.value = 'something';

treznik 2009-11-25 23:32:50

Answer 5

+1 A:

Whilst you are running Javascript code, you have all the local variables in the current scope, so if you had the following code:

var myObject = New Object();
myObject.Person = New Object();
myObject.Person.Name = "Mark";
myObject.Person.Gender = "Male";
myObject.Name = "object1";

... your root object would be myObject, and you refer to descendent objects through the dot notation.

However, thanks to the implentation of the DOM in the browser, you also inherit the window object via the this keyword. In fact, you can leave the this keyword out for simple situations i.e. when you are not using closures. Therefore, you can access Javascript functions at the top level by just using the function name.

If you want to access specific elements, like it sounds like you are wanting, you need to learn the DOM, and not use the syntax that you were suggesting (that sounds like 1990s Javascript). The root element you need to know is the HTMLDocument object, accessed via the document property. You can discover elements with specific Id (not Name) attributes by using the getelementbyid() of the document element. Of course, it helps if you've given your element an unique Id from the start. You can also recursively use the childNodes collection to iterate manually through elements until you find what you want. Alternatively, if you really can't supply an Id, you could also use the getelementsbyname() method, which is attached to every element in the DOM.

Example:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE></TITLE>
<META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="TextPad 4.6">
<META NAME="Author" CONTENT="?">
<META NAME="Keywords" CONTENT="?">
<META NAME="Description" CONTENT="?">
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="Javascript">
<!--

function DoSummat()
{
 var divInside = document.getElementById("Inside");
 divInside.textContent = "This text will appear inside.";
}

//-->
</SCRIPT>
</HEAD>

<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#FF0000" VLINK="#800000" ALINK="#FF00FF" BACKGROUND="?">
 <FORM>
  <INPUT TYPE="BUTTON" onclick="DoSummat();" NAME="MyButton" VALUE="Press Me">
 </FORM>
 <DIV ID="Outside">
  <DIV ID="Middle">
   <DIV ID="Inside"></DIV>
  </DIV>
 </DIV>
</BODY>
</HTML>

Mark Bertenshaw 2009-11-26 00:09:51

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Can firebug tell me the javascript name of an object?

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