Question

I have a javascript function which I try to read XML file.

function readXML()
{
    alert("readXML");
    if(xmlDoc.readyState == 4 || xmlDoc.readyState == 'complete')
    {
        for(var i=0; i < xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("Question").length; i++)
        {
            var CurrentTuple = xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("Question")[i];
            var QuestionID = CurrentTuple.attributes.getNamedItem("QuestionID").value;
            var CorrectAnswer = CurrentTuple.attributes.getNamedItem("CorrectAnswer").value;

            alert(QuestionID +":"+ CorrectAnswer);

            var OutputDisplayString = "";
            for(var j=0; j< CurrentTuple.childNodes.length; j++)
            {
                //alert(CurrentTuple.childNodes[j].nodeName);
                OutputDisplayString += CurrentTuple.childNodes[j].nodeName;
                OutputDisplayString += "\n";
            }
            alert(OutputDisplayString);
        }
    }
}

For XML FILE…

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<Exam>
   <Question QuestionID="Q001" CorrectAnswer="A">   
       <Description>Does a final member variable have to be initialized at the time it's  declared?</Description>
       <AnswerA>No</AnswerA>
       <AnswerB>Yes</AnswerB>
       <AnswerC></AnswerC>
       <AnswerD></AnswerD>
   </Question> 
</Exam>

Then, please let me show output result of “alert(OutputDisplayString);” with Firefox.

#text
Description
#text
AnswerA
#text
AnswerB
#text
AnswerC
#text
AnswerD
#text

Let me make compare the result which i get by using IE.

---------------------------
Message from webpage
---------------------------
Description
AnswerA
AnswerB
AnswerC
AnswerD

---------------------------
OK   
---------------------------

So What i would like to know is what is #text which i get as a result from Firefox.
Then by getting this #text result , I cannot evaluate the exact count of “CurrentTuple.childNodes.length” childNotes.

Please let me know what is happening the result of #text by Firefox.
And how can i get correct count of childNotes.

Answer 1

Firefox counts white spaces and line breaks as XML nodes while IE doesn’t. If you write

<AnswerA>No</AnswerA><AnswerB>Yes</AnswerB>

on the same line in your XML document you should find no text node between AnswerA and AnswerB.
I would filter out text nodes manually as they are iterated like this:

if (CurrentTuple.childNodes[j].nodeName == "#text") ...

or rather like this:

if ("tagName" in CurrentTuple.childNodes[j]) ...

Other methods I can think of don’t work on older browsers.