Question

WHAT IS object.sourceIndex?

Asked by: Pugglewuggle

Does anybody know what object.sourceIndex is and what it does?
 
I've looked all over the internet and can find nothing. I have a javascript script that runs in IE using this, but the same script doesn't work in Firefox.

Please explain if possible. Thanks!

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Asked On
2007-07-15 at 22:18:05ID22697957
Topics

Firefox Web Browser

,

JavaScript

,

Internet Explorer Web Browser

Participating Experts
4
Points
500
Comments
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Answers

 

by: hernst42Posted on 2007-07-15 at 22:27:50ID: 19493231

The attribute is only available in IE and gives each tag in the page a number. There is no such variable in FF. Such code is typical generated by FrontPage. e.g:

<html><head><title>Test</title>
</head><body>
<p>Etwas Text mit<br>Zeilenumbruch</p>
<p id="Absatz">HTML-Element, aber das wie vielte?</p>
<a href="javascript:alert(document.all.Absatz.sourceIndex)">Test</a>
</body></html>

will alert 7 as the a -tag is then seventh element in the html.

in german: http://www.selfhtml.net/javascript/objekte/all.htm#source_index

 

by: PugglewugglePosted on 2007-07-15 at 23:18:05ID: 19493382

Hmmm.... great info, thanks Hernst. Danke! Is there anyway to emulate this with a JS script? The script I am using relies solely upon this property... otherwise, I will have to manually number every applicable element on the page with another argument and adjust the script accordingly... There are several thousand such elements. :-(

Is there anyway you know of that can index objects of a certain type (images) (maybe store them in a persistent array, etc.) to emulate object.sourceIndex?

 

by: hernst42Posted on 2007-07-15 at 23:54:29ID: 19493463

For firefox you could use a function which adds that property like:
var j =1;
for(var i in document.getElementsByTag('IMG')) i.sourceIndex = j++;

So each img tag has a value

 

by: PugglewugglePosted on 2007-07-16 at 00:28:21ID: 19493531

How does this look? What I'm trying to do is generate the sourceIndex property only if the browser is not IE. Everything looks okay, but oddly enough the script won't work with this property defined for the images... I even put an onload in to make sure it executed. Am I doing something wrong?

<script language="javascript">
function labelSourceIndex(){
      if(navigator.appName != 'Microsoft Internet Explorer'){
            var j =1;
            for(var i in document.getElementsByTag('IMG')) i.sourceIndex = j++;
      }            
}
</script>
<body onload="lableSourceIndex();">

 

by: hernst42Posted on 2007-07-16 at 00:37:09ID: 19493559

Could be possible that even if you set those values (which will not be the same as the IE-page) you will need to rewrite that JS-code to make it work with FF without using the sourceIndex. Else you stick to use IE for that page.

 

by: PugglewugglePosted on 2007-07-16 at 00:40:46ID: 19493570

By this you mean defining a junk property (such as img1.junk) with the index numer and making the script look for that property if the browser != IE?

 

by: VincentPugliaPosted on 2007-07-16 at 05:11:48ID: 19494573

If you are only concerned about the <img> tag, you could use the  document.images collection itself:

<body>
<img src='http://members.aol.com/grassblad/image/grassiAvatar.jpg'>
<img  src='http://members.aol.com/grassblad/image/deNuPC.jpg'>
<img  src='http://members.aol.com/grassblad/image/moiAvatar.jpg'>
<script type='text/javascript'>
for (var i = 0; i <  document.images.length; i++)
alert(i + ' = ' + document.images[i].src)
</script>

 

by: mplungjanPosted on 2007-07-16 at 06:05:15ID: 19495042

assuming tag is the element you want to add a new attribute to, you use

tag.setAttribute('sourceIndex',j++);

and use tag.getAttribute('sourceIndex') to get it again.

 

by: dbrittPosted on 2007-07-16 at 07:34:11ID: 19495990

Also make sure you're using "getElementsByTagName", not "getElementsByTag".

 

by: mplungjanPosted on 2008-07-12 at 03:53:45ID: 21988633

Split Hernst, Vincent, DBritt and me

 

by: VincentPugliaPosted on 2008-07-12 at 04:34:30ID: 21988711

Hello, plungian :)

 

by: mplungjanPosted on 2008-07-12 at 04:53:06ID: 21988742

HI :)

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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