innerText/textContent vs. retrieving each text node

Question

I've heard that using el.innerText||el.textContent can yield unreliable results, and that's why I've always insisted on using the following function in the past:

function getText(node) {

    if (node.nodeType === 3) {
        return node.data;
    }

    var txt = '';

    if (node = node.firstChild) do {
        txt += getText(node);
    } while (node = node.nextSibling);

    return txt;

}

This function goes through all nodes within an element and gathers the text of all text nodes, and text within descendants:

E.g.

<div id="x">foo <em>foo...</em> foo</div>

Result:

getText(document.getElementById('x')); // => "foo foo... foo"

I'm quite sure there are issues with using innerText and textContent, but I've not been able to find a definitive list anywhere and I am starting to wonder if it's just hearsay.

Can anyone offer any information about the possibly lacking reliability of textContent/innerText?

EDIT: Found this great answer by Kangax -- http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1359469/innertext-works-in-ie-but-not-in-firefox/1359822#1359822

Answer 1

It's all about endlines and whitespace - browsers are very inconsistent in this regard, especially so in Internet Explorer. Doing the traversal is a sure-fire way to get identical results in all browsers.

Answer 2

Using innerHTML is deprecated here is an alternative . . .

http://www.bestcodingpractices.com/break_your_innerhtml_addiction-2719.html