What could be causing my function to not successfully retrieve elements based on their text content?

Question

What could be causing my function to not successfully retrieve elements based on their text content?

A function called matchTagAndText is designed to take two arguments: a selector and text, checking if any matched elements contain the specified text. The function code is as follows:

function matchTagAndText(sel, txt) {
    var elements = document.querySelectorAll(sel);
    return Array.prototype.filter.call(elements, function(element){
        return RegExp(txt,'i').test(element.textContent);
    });
}

The task at hand is to select a td element that includes the text 'Lorem ipsum', but this seems to be proving challenging.

The HTML content provided for this challenge:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8>
    <title>Frames</title>
</head>
<body>
    <td colspan="2" class="font-description">
        Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Tempora nulla iste, quae necessitatibus. Impedit mollitia delectus eum voluptas ullam! Perspiciatis in dolorem blanditiis dolores mollitia sint nostrum sunt veniam est!
    </td>
</body>
</html>

Following unsuccessful attempts to call the function with:

var el = matchTagAndText('td.font-description','Lorem ipsum');

An empty array gets returned. It seems there might be an issue with the function implementation. What could be causing this problem?

For a live example, see below:

function matchTagAndText(sel, txt) {
    var elements = document.querySelectorAll(sel);
    return Array.prototype.filter.call(elements, function(element){
        return RegExp(txt,'i').test(element.textContent);
    });
} 

var el = matchTagAndText('td.font-description','Lorem ipsum');
console.log(el);

<td colspan="2" class="font-description">
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Tempora nulla iste, quae necessitatibus. Impedit mollitia delectus eum voluptas ullam! Perspiciatis in dolorem blanditiis dolores mollitia sint nostrum sunt veniam est!
</td>

javascript arrays dom

Answer 1

Answer №1

Interestingly, the issue lies in the fact that your markup is not valid: The td element is missing its surrounding tr or table. Once you rectify this issue, everything should work as expected:

function matchTagAndText(sel, txt) {
    var elements = document.querySelectorAll(sel);
    return Array.prototype.filter.call(elements, function(element){
        return RegExp(txt,'i').test(element.textContent);
    });
} 

var el = matchTagAndText('td.font-description','Lorem ipsum');
console.log(el);

<table>
  <tr>
    <td colspan="2" class="font-description">
    Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Tempora nulla iste, quae necessitatibus. Impedit mollitia delectus eum voluptas ullam! Perspiciatis in dolorem blanditiis dolores mollitia sint nostrum sunt veniam est!
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>

Upon inspecting your code using Chrome's devtools, it appears that in an effort to validate the HTML, the browser has removed the td tag along with its associated class, resulting in your selector failing to find a match:

https://i.sstatic.net/5rMKJ.png

Answer 2

Interestingly, the issue lies in the fact that your markup is not valid: The td element is missing its surrounding tr or table. Once you rectify this issue, everything should work as expected:

function matchTagAndText(sel, txt) {
    var elements = document.querySelectorAll(sel);
    return Array.prototype.filter.call(elements, function(element){
        return RegExp(txt,'i').test(element.textContent);
    });
} 

var el = matchTagAndText('td.font-description','Lorem ipsum');
console.log(el);

<table>
  <tr>
    <td colspan="2" class="font-description">
    Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Tempora nulla iste, quae necessitatibus. Impedit mollitia delectus eum voluptas ullam! Perspiciatis in dolorem blanditiis dolores mollitia sint nostrum sunt veniam est!
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>

Upon inspecting your code using Chrome's devtools, it appears that in an effort to validate the HTML, the browser has removed the td tag along with its associated class, resulting in your selector failing to find a match:

https://i.sstatic.net/5rMKJ.png

Answer 3

Answer №2

Your code is correct, but your HTML structure needs adjustment - A TD element should be placed within a row inside a table.

function findTagAndText(selector, text) {
  var elements = document.querySelectorAll(selector);
  return Array.prototype.filter.call(elements, function(element) {
    return RegExp(text, 'i').test(element.textContent);
  });
}

var result = findTagAndText('td.font-description','Lorem ipsum');

console.log(result);

<table>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td colspan="2" class="font-description">
        Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Tempora nulla iste, quae necessitatibus. Impedit mollitia delectus eum voluptas ullam! Perspiciatis in dolorem blanditiis dolores mollitia sint nostrum sunt veniam est!
      </td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

Answer 4

Your code is correct, but your HTML structure needs adjustment - A TD element should be placed within a row inside a table.

function findTagAndText(selector, text) {
  var elements = document.querySelectorAll(selector);
  return Array.prototype.filter.call(elements, function(element) {
    return RegExp(text, 'i').test(element.textContent);
  });
}

var result = findTagAndText('td.font-description','Lorem ipsum');

console.log(result);

<table>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td colspan="2" class="font-description">
        Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Tempora nulla iste, quae necessitatibus. Impedit mollitia delectus eum voluptas ullam! Perspiciatis in dolorem blanditiis dolores mollitia sint nostrum sunt veniam est!
      </td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

Answer 5

Answer №3

It appears that the issue lies within your HTML code. You should not place a div element outside of another block level element. As a result, the browser will not recognize such an element and you won't be able to select it.

function findElementByTagAndText(tag, text) {
    var elements = document.querySelectorAll(tag);
    console.log(elements)
    return Array.prototype.filter.call(elements, function(element){
        return RegExp(text,'i').test(element.textContent);
    });
} 

var matchedElements = findElementByTagAndText('td','Lorem ipsum');

console.log(matchedElements);

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8>
    <title>Frames</title>
</head>
<body>
    <table>
      <td colspan="2" class="font-description">
          Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Tempora nulla iste, quae necessitatibus. Impedit mollitia delectus eum voluptas ullam! Perspiciatis in dolorem blanditiis dolores mollitia sint nostrum sunt veniam est!
      </td>
    </table>
</body>
</html>

Answer 6

It appears that the issue lies within your HTML code. You should not place a div element outside of another block level element. As a result, the browser will not recognize such an element and you won't be able to select it.

function findElementByTagAndText(tag, text) {
    var elements = document.querySelectorAll(tag);
    console.log(elements)
    return Array.prototype.filter.call(elements, function(element){
        return RegExp(text,'i').test(element.textContent);
    });
} 

var matchedElements = findElementByTagAndText('td','Lorem ipsum');

console.log(matchedElements);

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8>
    <title>Frames</title>
</head>
<body>
    <table>
      <td colspan="2" class="font-description">
          Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Tempora nulla iste, quae necessitatibus. Impedit mollitia delectus eum voluptas ullam! Perspiciatis in dolorem blanditiis dolores mollitia sint nostrum sunt veniam est!
      </td>
    </table>
</body>
</html>

What could be causing my function to not successfully retrieve elements based on their text content?

Answer №1

Answer №2

Answer №3

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