javascript function indexOf() not working in chrome with white space in string

Question

I want to search the string in anchor tag, When I simply search the "Happy" without space it works fine however when I search it with some space like "Happy " it does not work.

Below is the code sample:

<html>
<body>

 <a style="color:#555555" href="Happy coding!!">test</a>
<br/>

<script type="text/javascript">

var hrefTags = document.getElementsByTagName("a");
var bDayId = ""; 
var stringToSearch = "Happy coding!!";
    for(var hrefIndex=0; hrefIndex < hrefTags.length; hrefIndex ++){
bDayId = hrefTags.item(hrefIndex).href.toString(); 
document.write(bDayId+"<br/>");
document.write( bDayId.indexOf("Happy "));  
     }  

</script>

</body>
</html>

DhruvPathak · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-20 07:58:45Z

2

its because href being a URL gets URL encoded , space becomes '%20' . Href with a space is an invalid href, hence use another attribute if you want to store some information in href attribute, or if you want to read and string compare href attribute with spaces, compare after proper url decoding. http://jsfiddle.net/Sddv6/1/

var hrefTags = document.getElementsByTagName("a");
var bDayId = ""; 
var stringToSearch = "Happy coding!!";
for(var hrefIndex=0; hrefIndex < hrefTags.length; hrefIndex ++){
  bDayId = decodeURIComponent(hrefTags.item(hrefIndex).href);      
  document.write(bDayId);    
  document.write(bDayId+"<br/>");
  document.write( bDayId.indexOf("Happy "));  
}

answered Dec 20, 2011 at 7:58

DhruvPathak

43.4k17 gold badges125 silver badges180 bronze badges

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

Comments

Ahmy · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-20 07:57:38Z

0

Use regular expression for matching the string look at the following URL will help: http://www.tizag.com/javascriptT/javascript-string-replace.php

answered Dec 20, 2011 at 7:57

Ahmy

5,5088 gold badges41 silver badges50 bronze badges

Comments

Chris · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-20 07:59:09Z

0

The space will be encoded as "%20" while retrieving from the link href attribute. Try something below:

bDayId = decodeURIComponent(hrefTags.item(hrefIndex).href.toString());

answered Dec 20, 2011 at 7:59

Chris

6132 gold badges8 silver badges12 bronze badges

Comments

paxdiablo · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-20 08:03:50Z

0

When I do that in Firefox, the string I get from toString() is:

file:///home/pax/Happy%20coding!!

If that's what you're seeing then of course you won't be able to find "Happy " in there. When I change the search statement to:

document.write( bDayId.indexOf("Happy%20"));

then it works fine.

Perhaps you may want to think about url-encoding the search string similar to the way your browser does it in toString():

document.write( bDayId.indexOf(encodeURIComponent("Happy ")));

This is, of course, assuming I'm right about the encoding. You didn't provide the actual output from your HTML so it's a little difficult to tell.

It would be worthwhile posting that as an edit to your question.

edited Dec 20, 2011 at 8:03

answered Dec 20, 2011 at 7:57

paxdiablo

889k243 gold badges1.6k silver badges2k bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

javascript function indexOf() not working in chrome with white space in string

4 Answers 4

Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

4 Answers 4

Comments

Comments

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related