problem with document.getElementById

[y2k1981]

can somebody explain to me why this is so?

var foo = document.getElementById("id1");
alert(foo);

the alert returns object in square brackets. why doesn't it return id1? Obviously the alert doesn't provide any functionality to what I'm trying to do. What I was trying to say was:

var foo = document.getElementById("id1");
if(foo.style.top < 120)
{
foo.style.top += 20;
}
but when it wasn't working, I put in the alert to see why.  So can somebody answer why the alert doesn't return id1?

Thanks everybody!!

 

[xutopia]

maybe the problem is with foo.style.top not being a numeric value. Indeed foo.style.top is probably some numeric value with 'px' after wards. Try parsing it first like so :

var foo = document.getElementById("id1"
var fooTop = parseInt(foo.style.top);
if(fooTop < 120)
{
foo.style.top = fooTop + 20;
}

As you can see you can assign a numeric value to foo.style.top but it isn't a numeric value that is given to you when you try to get the value there.

I hope this helps you out. Gary

http://www.xutopia.com

Haran

 

[HellTel]

By returning [object], the alert is saying that foo found what you were asking for in your getElementById statement and that it is of type object. What it proves is that &quot;id1&quot; does exist.
To alert the properties of an object try:
alert(foo.style.top);

Hope that makes sense and helps a little for the future. Hope I helped / Thanks for helping
if ((Math.abs(x)<10&&Math.abs<10) && (((parseInt(Math.abs(x).toString()+Math.abs.toString())-Math.abs(x)-Math.abs)%9)!=0)) {alert(&quot;I'm a monkey's uncle&quot;}

 

[y2k1981]

thank you both for your responses. You were spot on Gary, it did return 20px when I entered foo.style.top.

thanks heltel too