Javascript working in Firefox but not in IE -

Question

I have this

authnav='<li class="last"><a href="auth/login">login</a></li>'+
  '<li><a href="auth/create_account">create account</a></li>';

It works fine in Firefox, but Internet Explorer gives me an "Error: Object doesn't support this property or method" I'm mystified - what could be going on here?

There's a comment line above the offending line, could that possibly be making a difference?

//authnav='<li class="last"><a href="auth/login">login</a></li>';

Check out the page yourself at http://www.imagineelection.com. I want two little links, "login" and "create account", to appear on the top right of the page.

Thanks!

Martin Smith · Accepted Answer · 2010-04-02 19:47:41Z

4

The problem arises in this function as IE allows you to reference document.getElementById("authnav") as authnav and then gets upset when you assign it a string. Maybe declaring a local variable explicitly with var authnav will work or is it intended to be a global variable?

function add_auth_nav() {
    name = get_cookie("name");
    candidate = get_cookie("candidate");
    if (name) {
        authnav = '<li class="last"><a href="auth/logout">logout</a></li>';
        if (candidate) {
            authnav = authnav + '<li><a href="edit/candidate/' + candidate + '">edit profile</a></li><li><a href="profile/' + candidate + '">view profile</a></li>'
        }
        authnav = authnav + "<li>" + name.replace(/\+/g, " ") + "</li>"
    } else {
        authnav = '<li class="last"><a href="auth/login">login</a></li><li><a href="auth/create_account">create account</a></li>'
    }
    document.getElementById("authnav").innerHTML = authnav
}

edited Apr 2, 2010 at 19:47

answered Apr 2, 2010 at 19:30

Martin Smith

457k97 gold badges777 silver badges885 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

4 Comments

Summer Over a year ago

This makes sense. Is there any way I can explicitly cast authnav to be a string for now?

Martin Smith Over a year ago

Just needed to run it through a reformatter so I could see what was happening. In the function I have just added to my post can you declare a local variable with "var authnav" so it doesn't think you are referring to the document element of that name? (Or maybe rename it to something else to avoid confusion - Unless is it intended to be global and declared somewhere else??)

Summer Over a year ago

I declared it with a local scope and that solved everything - thanks again.

bobince Over a year ago

name and candidate need to be declared var too, otherwise you get accidental globals, which leads to weird, difficult-to-debug errors. Always use var, even for globals; it avoids all these problems and is compulsory in ECMA262-5's new ‘strict mode’.

James Westgate · Accepted Answer · 2010-04-02 19:30:30Z

0

Results reproduced. Can you substitute the ie_scripts.min.js file with the original and check if it still fails...

answered Apr 2, 2010 at 19:30

James Westgate

11.5k8 gold badges66 silver badges69 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Javascript working in Firefox but not in IE -

2 Answers 2

4 Comments

Comments

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

4 Comments

Comments

Related