Question

I am trying to do some comparison logic about the positions of HTML elements. I have a system that I think should work, but there is a problem.

In my code I compare the current left and top values of one absolutely positioned element to those of another (which may be moving) using inequality statements (> and <). The problem is that the feedback I get form document.getElementById(nameVar).style.left is in the form of a string (e.g. 200px) not a number (e.g. 200), so the comparisons don’t work.

My question is, is there any way to turn the string into a number that I can manipulate the way I want to? Either by using an altered address or by preforming some procedure with the feedback once I get it.

Any help would be great.

Answer 1

parseInt gives you the numerical value:

var tmp = parseInt(document.getElementById(nameVar).style.left, 10);
console.log(tmp);

or, as @PeteWilson suggests in the comments, use parseFloat