GetPreviousStructuredSibling( objNode ) : Javascript Library Snippets : Kinky Solutions : A Student's Perspective by Ben Nadel

GetPreviousStructuredSibling( objNode )

Snippets Overview

ColdFusion

DHTML

Flash

Javascript Library

Downloadable Files

getpreviousstructuredsibling_function1.htm ( 3,804 Bytes )

GetPreviousStructuredSibling() method traverses the sibling chain in the document object model (DOM) searching for the closest previous sibling that is a structured node (ie. not a text node; node of type 3). This is an important function for use in cross-browser scripting where different browsers may or may not acknowledge the existence of text nodes in between structured elements (that are not necessarily expected, such as text nodes between a close and open TR's in a table).

function GetPreviousStructuredSibling( objNode ){
// Travel up the sibling chain looking for a non-text node.
for (
objNode = objNode.previousSibling ;
(
objNode &&
objNode.nodeType == 3
) ;
objNode = objNode.previousSibling
){
// Nothing has to happen here. The FOR loop itself is taking care
// of the node traversing. We don't have to really worry about any
// error checking as we can't really make it outside of HTML DOM
// elements without hitting a structured node, or coming up with NULL.
}
// Return the sibling node.
return( objNode );
}

Added May 3, 2006 / Updated May 3, 2006