I am having a problem with getElementsByTagName. I am trying to pull information from an xml file I received from the server using ajax. In IE it is works fine, but when I try to run it on Chrome or FireFox I get an "undefined".

Javascript:

function parseMessage()
{
    doc = request.responseXML;
    sum = "";

    for (var i=0; i< doc.getElementsByTagName('coupon').length; i=i+1)
    {
        var lat2 = doc.documentElement.getElementsByTagName('latitude').item(i).text;
        var longi2 = doc.documentElement.getElementsByTagName('longitude').item(i).text;
        var latlng  = new google.maps.LatLng( lat2 , longi2 ); 
        var product =  doc.documentElement.getElementsByTagName('productname').item(i).text;
        // marker[i] = createMarker(map2, product, latlng, description);

        sum = sum + description+ " "+ product + lat2 + longi2;                          
    }

    document.write(sum);
}           

XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
-<coupons>
-<coupon id="1">
<productname>Bigmac</productname>
<panyname>Macdonalds</panyname>
<latitude>32.015954</latitude>
<longitude>34.755228</longitude>
</coupon>
-<coupon id="2">
<productname>Crocs</productname>
<panyname>Crocs</panyname>
<latitude>32.079375</latitude>
<longitude>34.769325</longitude>
</coupon>
-<coupon id="3">
<productname>Nike Shoks</productname>
<panyname>NIKE</panyname>
<latitude>32.048825</latitude>
<longitude>34.785461</longitude>
</coupon>
-<coupon id="4">
.....

I am having a problem with getElementsByTagName. I am trying to pull information from an xml file I received from the server using ajax. In IE it is works fine, but when I try to run it on Chrome or FireFox I get an "undefined".

Javascript:

function parseMessage()
{
    doc = request.responseXML;
    sum = "";

    for (var i=0; i< doc.getElementsByTagName('coupon').length; i=i+1)
    {
        var lat2 = doc.documentElement.getElementsByTagName('latitude').item(i).text;
        var longi2 = doc.documentElement.getElementsByTagName('longitude').item(i).text;
        var latlng  = new google.maps.LatLng( lat2 , longi2 ); 
        var product =  doc.documentElement.getElementsByTagName('productname').item(i).text;
        // marker[i] = createMarker(map2, product, latlng, description);

        sum = sum + description+ " "+ product + lat2 + longi2;                          
    }

    document.write(sum);
}           

XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
-<coupons>
-<coupon id="1">
<productname>Bigmac</productname>
<panyname>Macdonalds</panyname>
<latitude>32.015954</latitude>
<longitude>34.755228</longitude>
</coupon>
-<coupon id="2">
<productname>Crocs</productname>
<panyname>Crocs</panyname>
<latitude>32.079375</latitude>
<longitude>34.769325</longitude>
</coupon>
-<coupon id="3">
<productname>Nike Shoks</productname>
<panyname>NIKE</panyname>
<latitude>32.048825</latitude>
<longitude>34.785461</longitude>
</coupon>
-<coupon id="4">
.....

• javascript
• xml
• html
• xml-parsing
• getelementsbytagname

Share Follow edited Jul 29, 2012 at 18:30 Josh Mein 28.7k1515 gold badges7878 silver badges8888 bronze badges asked Jul 29, 2012 at 18:25 Emil AdzEmil Adz 41.1k3838 gold badges144144 silver badges190190 bronze badges 2

• Given the posted XML, what are you trying to do? What is expected to happen from the use of item(i)? – David Thomas Commented Jul 29, 2012 at 18:36
• I am trying to get the information of the xml document and to create a marker from this information on google map for every coupon element in the file. – Emil Adz Commented Jul 29, 2012 at 18:51

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1 Answer 1

Sorted by: Reset to default 6

The first problem is that getElementsByTagName() returns a list of elements; which can't be operated on as a group, so you'd have to select a particular node on which to work:

getElementsByTagName('latitude')[0]; // for the first element.

The second problem is that:

getElementsByTagName('latitude')[0].item(i);

Should be used to access a property, or attribute, of a particular element, and item(i) is neither, though it may be set/used somewhere that we're not seeing.

If you're trying to access one of the element's children (and in your posted code the latitude elements don't have any children), you could use:

getElementsByTagName('latitude')[0].childNodes[i];

And text() doesn't return, or do, anything in plain JavaScript. If you're using the jQuery text() method, then that only works on jQuery objects, if you're trying to access the text content of the current nodes, then:

getElementsByTagName('latitude')[0].textContent; // for Firefox, Chrome...

Or:

getElementsByTagName('latitude')[0].innerText; // for IE