Confusion between DOM element and javascript object

Hi,

I am having this really strange issue and would result in a javascript error popup in Internet Explorer. When I debug into the script, the problem seems to be that during the execution of some javascript code, IE confused a javascript object with a DOM element (A div).

The code that is causing this issue is below:

Code: Select all

window.Splitter1 = new ComponentArt_Splitter('Splitter1');
Splitter1.Postback = function() { __doPostBack('Splitter1','') };
Splitter1.Panes.Orientation = 1;

The error fails in the third line where IE thinks "Splitter1" is a DIV element instead of the above created javascript object, making "Splitter1.Panes" null. Note: This does not happen all the time, so timing has something to do with this too.

It's very hard to see what could be causing this without seeing the _SPlitter class and remaining code.

Are you able to post that?

IE makes everything with an id attribute a global variable.

thus if your class generates and adds a div, with that ID, it will be the object that IE refers to, instead of your class instance.

I would *HIGHLY* recommend that in IE you *NEVER* use a variable name with the same label, as an element in your DOM (by ID or by NAME) (IE has issues with both!)

Unfortunately, the code I showed above is from a third-party tool (ComponentArt) so I do not have any controls over how their javascript objects are created. I may need to take this up with their support then.

But I still do not understand why does it works most of the time? If what you said is correct, shouldn't it breaks all the time? But this error only pops up once every 10 times or something. And once it works, it will always works, until I restart IIS.