Home/ Questions/Q 8556695
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-06-11T15:24:41+00:00

When I try to pass text which spreads throughout a few block elements the

  • 0

When I try to pass text which spreads throughout a few block elements the window.find method dosent work:

HTML:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset=utf-8 />
</head>
<body>
  <p>search me</p><b> I could be the answer</b>
</body>
</html>

JavaScript:

window.find("meI could be");

Or:

str = "me";
str+= "\n";
str+="I could be t";

window.find(str);

This happens when the <p> element is present between the search term.

How can I fix that?

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    As option:

    function containsStr(str) {
    return document.body.innerText.indexOf(str) > -1;
}

    Just tested it and it’s working same as window.find. Or window.find is working same as this my function.
    Anyway seems it’s depends to element’s style.display property.
    E.g. when I set

    p {
    display: inline;
}

    this call window.find("me I could be")​ returns true for your HTML example.

    I created this example to test mentioned behavior.
    As option you can create a div element in memory, get document.body.innerHTML and set retrieved value to div’s innerHTML, then change style.dysplay to "inline" for elements within this div similar to what I did in my code example, and then perform a search.

    UPDATE #1: jQuery

    I’ve made deeper research and found that usage of jQuery :contains selector is working better than my previous function and than window.find, but may be more expensive (not sure, need to be tested).

    function containsStr$(str) {
    return $('body:contains("'+str+'")').length > 0;
}

    UPDATE #2: pure JavaScript solution

    function _find(str) {
    var div = document.createElement('div');
    div.innerHTML = document.body.innerHTML;
    var elements = div.getElementsByTagName('*');
    for(var i = elements.length; 0 > i--;) {
        elements[i].style.display = 'inline';
    }
    return (div.innerText || div.textContent).indexOf(str) > -1;
}
    • 0