Question

In this code I am trying to compare two strings with jQuery. The current content of a div and the new content, loaded from a (currently) static page.

But it doesn’t work, when the loaded content is the same as the current content, it still loads the new content…

When I view the content vars, they really are equal (I used the JS alert).

$(document).ready(function () {
    var refreshId = setInterval(function () {
        $.get("ajaxGetEvents.aspx", function (data) {
            if ($('#events').html() != data) {
                $('#events').fadeOut('slow', function () {
                    $(this).load('ajaxGetEvents.aspx').fadeIn('slow');
                });
            } else {
                alert("item is equal");
            }
        });
    }, 5000);
});

Answer 1

I suspect you are not getting the values you expect for $('#events').html() and data.

Can you use firebug or developer tools to place a breakpoint at your if statement and inspect the values?

Alternatively you could just throw in a couple of alerts to see what these contain… Example:

alert($('#events').html());
alert(data);
if ($('#events').html() != data) {

That said, if you are not familiar with using firebug or developer tools, now might be a good time to start using them. They will save you a lot of headaches in the future and they are infinitely better than alerts when it comes to debugging.