Question

My current init() code targets element IDs starting at ‘desc_1′,’desc_2’,’desc_3’…and so on.

function init(){
   var max = 50000;
   for (i = 1; i < max; i++){
      makeEditable('desc_'+i);}
}

Most of the elements on a page won’t actually start at 1. For example, they might be ‘desc_47′,’desc_48′,’desc_49’ – or in some cases, aren’t even sequential: ‘desc_96′,’desc_99′,’desc_101’.

What would my init() statement have to be to target these types of element IDs?
Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Instead of guessing at 50000 IDs, just select all elements that have an ID starting with desc_, then pass the element to makeEditable().

var els = document.querySelectorAll("*[id^=desc_]");

for (var i = 0; i < els.length; i++) {
    makeEditable(els[i]);
}

If they’re all the same element type, replace * in the selector with the tag name.

If there are other elements that start with that ID, then assign a class to the elements so you can target them directly.

If you can’t add a class, then before passing it, you’d just need to test the id of each element to make sure it has a number at the end.