clearning HTML textarea

From http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_id_class.asp :

Do NOT start an ID name with a number! It will not work in Mozilla/Firefox.

Dave: Although correct, I suggest you read http://w3fools.com/
I use MDN as reference instead of the VERY flaky w3schools who despite of the name has nothing to do with w3org

And the error is likely that you have a different ID than the one you access

document.getElementById('msg_$row[id]') is likely not the same as the ID of the textarea

@ mplungjan, we've had this discussion before.  W3fools are flakier and less useful.  You could at least post a link to something relevant on MDN.

the fact that there was a need for w3fools at all says it all. It is not updated but neither is w3schools sufficiently

Here are the relevant links

Thank you.  You know a lot, you don't have to be an ignorant critic like the W3fools.

I would just really wish w3schools would clean up their act. It teaches so many bad habits and mistakes to beginners. I occasionally go there when I forgot if it is left-margin or margin-left but when people link to their JavaScript and I take a look, I am amazed of the poor quality of the code. At least at MDN I can fix the mistakes in the examples :)

Considering the amount of HTML and javascript from 1999 that we see here that comes from other sites, I don't think they're doing that bad.  Anytime I see a tag that says <script language='Javascript 1.2'.. (that book was published in 1997) or comments about IE4 or Netscape4...  That's when I figure they're not trying to keep up at all.  And there is a lot of that code still out there on web sites as code examples.

And speaking of MDN: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/New_in_JavaScript/1.2?redirectlocale=en-US&redirectslug=JavaScript%2FNew_in_JavaScript%2F1.2

And this from Oracle: http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19957-01/816-6411-10/816-6411-10.pdf

Hi, my id's are not starting with any numbers. I am passing a php varible. The 1st code re-write is the same code I used. I was escaping the " because I was using it in a php print statement.

I re-wrote the code removing the php escape strings so you can see.

                                <textarea id="reply_<?=$row['id'];?>" name="reply_<?=$row['id'];?>" cols=200 rows=5></textarea>
                                <input type="submit" value="Send Reply"> <input type="button" onclick="document.getElementById('reply_<?=$row['id'];?>').value = '';
                                document.getElementById('msg_<?=$row['id'];?>').style.display='none';" value="Cancel">

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What I am trying to do when they click on a reply link it expands the hidden TR and displays the textbox. The user can then type in text and send a message. Or they can click cancel, the value of the textbox is cleared and the TR is once again hidden.

Here is what the HTML looks once php did it's job:

<tr><td>Robert Saylor</td><td>June 02, 2013</td><td><a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="document.getElementById('msg_2').style.display='table-row'">Reply</a></td></tr>
			<tr><td colspan=3><p>test</p><hr></td></tr>
			<tr style="display:none" id="msg_2">
			<td colspan=3>
				<form action="employer.php" method="post">
				<input type="hidden" name="section" value="send_msg_reply">
				<input type="hidden" name="r_id" value="6">
				<input type="hidden" name="id" value="2">
				<textarea id="reply_2" name="reply_2" cols=200 rows=5></textarea>
				<input type="submit" value="Send Reply"> <input type="button" onclick="document.getElementById('reply_2').value = '';
				document.getElementById('msg_2').style.display='none';" value="Cancel">

				
				</form>
			</td></tr>

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Another odd issue trying to get the display to be in a "table-row" but it's staying in the 1st TD area where I want it to go into the colspan. See screen shot.
expert-exchange-js1.jpg
expert-exchange-js2.jpg

I think it's my HTML editor js causing the value not to reset. As far as moving it properly in the TR TD I am just going to move it to the top of the page and make it visable. Thanks anyhow but I think the code I posted and looks like you guys pretty much said that so I am going to close this request. Thanks for taking the time to look. Enjoy the points.

Thanks for posting the simulator. I will book mark that and see if I can use it to pull it out of any other javascript conflicts. Odd thing firebug did not show me any errors with all my js put together.