Question

Cloning a div but with unique ids for all the div elements

Asked by: sm_muks

Hello,

I am trying to clone an entire div wherein :-
-the div would consist of an outer table
-the outer table would consist of 4 <tr>
-one <tr> will have a select box
-second <tr> will have another table and so on...

I would like to clone the entire div complete with the fieldset and also be able to assign unique ids to each element of the div so that when I call my servlet,I will be able to do a request.getParameter() of all the individual values by referring to each element by its own unique id.

Could someone tell me how to achieve this?

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Asked On
2008-08-04 at 09:23:23ID23619514
Topic

JavaScript

Participating Experts
2
Points
150
Comments
5

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Answers

 

by: PhillipsWellnessPosted on 2008-08-04 at 11:39:11ID: 22154850

You use cloneNode(true) to make a deep copy of the div block.  Then, you will loop through it and change all the IDs.  Once you've changed all the element ID's, then you will append the newly cloned div block to a 'parent' with appendChild() function.

See code below for example...

You'll need ot change all the ID's so you don't have ID conflicts.  The name of your select box wouldn't necessarily have to change (if you want both of them submitted together as one 'element' for your form handler).  But if you want them to be different, then you should change it too.

One important thing to note is that after you do cloneNode(true) you have not yet added this new div block to your document.  It has to be appended to your existing document in some way.  If there is an outer div block for it, then that would be as simple as

outer_div.appendChild(new_div);

Just make sure your id's are going to be changed before you appendChild() so you don't have any conflicts.

Hope this helps!

P.S.  new_div.children[0][0] might reference the THEAD or TBODY tag.  If so, then you can add another [0] to what I have below so that you are looking at the first TR inside the TBODY tag.  

Let me know if you have any questions.

var new_div = original_div.cloneNode(true);
new_div.id = 'new id for div';
new_div.children[0].id = 'new table id';
new_div.children[0][0].id = 'new first TR row id';  
new_div.children[0][0].id = 'new select box id';
new_div.children[0][0].name = 'new name for select box';
... and so on....
                                              
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by: sm_muksPosted on 2008-08-04 at 14:08:32ID: 22156240

Thanks for your response.

The issue that I now encounter is this:

I have cloned my div and its elements and also assigned unique ids to each of them.Say there is a table in the original div that was supposed to be cloned.I need to make sure that only the header of this table is copied and not the remaining rows when the original div is cloned.

In order to achieve this,I write a js function as shows below that removes all the rows of the table.When I do :
var tbl = document.getElementById(table);

tbl is being returned as null.

Can this be fixed?

Thanks.

function removeAllRowsFromTable(tableName){
	
	var tbl = document.getElementById(table);
	alert(tbl);
	if(tbl != null){
		var lastRow = tbl.rows.length;
		if(lastRow != null){
			for(var i=lastRow; i > 1; i--){
				tbl.deleteRow(1);
			}
		}
		//tbl.setAttribute('height','3')
	}
}

                                              
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by: Lolly-InkPosted on 2008-08-04 at 17:12:31ID: 22157241

The parameter passed to function removeAllRowsFromTable is tableName, not table.

var tbl = document.getElementById(tableName);
                                              
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by: PhillipsWellnessPosted on 2008-08-04 at 17:33:44ID: 22157307

I'm guessing this is before you've appended the new div block to an existing element in the document?  If so, that could be why this is happening.  Remember your new element does not really 'exist' in the eyes of the DOM until AFTER you've appended it as a child and it is linked somehow to the document.  

One thing you could do is pass the actual table object instead of the table name.  To do this, if your table is:

new_div.children[0]

Then your code would look like this:

removeAllRowsFromTable(new_div.children[0]);
 
 
function removeAllRowsFromTable(tbl){
	
	var lastRow = tbl.rows.length;
	if(lastRow != null){
		for(var i=lastRow; i > 1; i--){
			tbl.deleteRow(1);
		}
	}
	//tbl.setAttribute('height','3')
}
                                              
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