Question

I have a JavaScript function that returns a string. I want to write this string to an html page, but in a block-of-text format where I can specify the width. I’m currently using a read-only textarea, but I’m sure there’s a much better way. How would I do this?

Example:

String returned from javascript function:
The dog was lazy in the sun.

On the html page:

The dog was  
lazy in the  
sun.

Edit:

Sorry, I wasn’t being clear enough.
This javascript function could return any string, I don’t know what it could return.
So inside my html, I would do the following:

<script type="text/javascript" />  
    document.write(functionCall());  
</script>  

but I would like to format this like in the example above.
Unfortunately, wrapping this in <div> tags with the width attribute doesn’t work.

Answer 1

var text, width, container;

width = "200px";        // set this to whatever you like
text = some_function();

// you can create a <div id="text-container"></div> in your
// HTML wherever you want the text to show up, or you can
// the JavaScript just create it at the bottom of the page

container = document.getElementById("text-container");
if(!container) {
    container = document.createElement("div");
    container.id = "text-container";
    document.body.appendChild(container);
}

container.style.width=width;
container.innerHTML = text;