document.all problem in IE5.5

[philmck]

I have a couple of problems where accessing a form element using

elem = document.all("elementid");

causes a 'null or not an object' error. The behaviour is inconsistent in that the problem may not always occur the first time this is invoked.

By replacing this with

elem = document.getElementById("elementid");

the problem no longer occurs.

However I don't understand why this should be. Can anyone suggest?

Thanks

 

[tviman]

Document.getElementById() is far more elegant and browser friendly than document.all().

There's always a better way. The fun is trying to find it!