Pass html object through string into function

Question

What I have is kinda unusual I guess. I have this function deleteItem which is triggered onclick and has the following parameters

function dItem(type,id,element,confirmed){
    if(confirmed){
        handle delete function
    }else{
        var c = ',';
        popup('Are you sure you want to delete this item?',
            {
                "Yes":"dItem('"+type+"'"+c+id+c+element+c+true+")",
                "Cancel":"popupClose()"
            }
        )
    }
}

.. onclick='dItem("comment",15,this,false)' ..

In popup()'s second parameter are passed the buttons that are to be displayed in the popup and the functions they call respectively. The problem is that element is a HTMLDIV element and I cannot figure out a neat way to pass that through a string. The only solution I could come to think of is to have a global variable holding the element in question and not passing it at all, although I don't really want to do that since it's more of a hack rather than a solution. Does anybody have any idea how I can pass that element through a string? Thanks in advance!

EDIT:

This is how the buttons object b is being processed and turned into HTML. Do you see how I can supply it with an actual function instead of just a name in the form of string?

var _b = '';
for(var i in b){
    _b+="<div onclick='"+b[i]+"'>"+i+"</div>";
}

Maybe not pass the DOM element, but pass the id of the element and use document.getElementById — Andrew Briggs
– Andrew Briggs, Commented Aug 25, 2013 at 14:44
What currently happens when you run the code though? I don't see a reason why your code as it is won't work :/ As opposed to pass the whole element, why don't you pass an ID of it? — ninty9notout
– ninty9notout, Commented Aug 25, 2013 at 14:44
Because the element doesn't have an ID. Unfortunately I guess having to hack it is the only way — php_nub_qq
– php_nub_qq, Commented Aug 25, 2013 at 14:47

Bart · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-25 15:19:41Z

2

It's more common to handle this situation with callbacks. You will need to alter your popup function for that to work.

Example:

popup('Are you sure you want to delete this item?', {
    "Yes": function () {
        dItem(type, id, element, confirmed);
    },

    "Cancel": function () {
        popupClose();
    }
});

As a workaround you could simply generate an unique ID for the element and use that to identify the element later on. Because your function is recursive you need to deal with the fact that element can be either a ELEMENT_NODE or a string.

for(var i in b){
    var generatedId = i /* TODO: not sure this generates an unique id */;
    _b += "<div id='" + generatedId + "' onclick='" + b[i] + "'>" + i + "</div>";
}

function dItem (type, id, element, confirmed) {
    if (confirmed) {
        // handle delete function
    }else{
        var elementId;

        // find the elementId
        if (element && element.nodeType && element.nodeType == 1) {
            elementId = element.id;
        }else if (typeof element == 'string') {
            elementId = element
        }else{
            throw Error('Argument [element] is not a ELEMENT_NODE or string');
        }

        var args = [type, id, elementId, true];

        popup('Are you sure you want to delete this item?', {
            "Yes": "dItem(" + args.join(', ') + ")",
            "Cancel": "popupClose()"
        });
    }
}

edited Aug 25, 2013 at 15:19

answered Aug 25, 2013 at 14:48

Bart

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3 Comments

php_nub_qq Over a year ago

This is a nice suggestion but I cannot really do it because the html from the buttons object is created in such way that I can only pass functions via strings. Having to rebuild the whole function and correcting its hundreds of uses throughout the whole project is something that I really would like to avoid doing. Too bad I haven't thought of this by the time I have created this function. +rep

Bart Over a year ago

The only method I can think of besides callbacks is to pass the elements id attribute instead of the actual element.

php_nub_qq Over a year ago

Thank you very much! Going to +rep you some more if it makes any difference to you :D

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