Print an Object

**motion-ex** · Jul 16, 2007, 06:39

Hello

let say with a javascript Object called linktarget it is made of a source-page with 4 to 5 links to targeted-pages that talk about the same topic than the source-page (you might have seen that already

).

i have an admin interface of let say some sort of a cms that let me play with every linktarget i.e. source-page and its targeted pages (so i can add or remove a target from a certain linktarget object) but the first thing i want to do is to display every LinkTarget object in the system (an array of targetlink object) so on my administration homepage i would have in a 2 columns table where every linktaget object occupies a single row where one cell contains info about the source-page and a second cell contains all the info about the targeted-pages linked to that source.

I am looking for help to write the function that access the object, retrieve the properties (source_url, source_title, source_date, source_category, target_title, target_date) and display them in the 2 columns html table i described described earlier...

Thanks for the help!

here is what i started:

Code JavaScript:

document.getElementById('SmartLinks');
document.write('SmartLinks.Document_Source.URL');
document.write('SmartLinks.Document_Source.Titre');
document.write('SmartLinks.Document_Source.Date');
document.write('SmartLinks.Zone_Cible[]');
document.write('SmartLinks.Table_Cible.Document_Cible.Titre');
document.write('SmartLinks.Table_Cible.Document_Cible.Date');

**motion-ex** · Jul 17, 2007, 02:58

in other words let say you have an object named person with properties: age, sex, location, job, phone...

how do you get the properties of the object and then display them in an html table for example?

**kyberfabrikken** · Jul 17, 2007, 06:23

Originally Posted by motion-ex

in other words let say you have an object named person with properties: age, sex, location, job, phone...

how do you get the properties of the object and then display them in an html table for example?

You don't use document.write. You'll have to use either the DOM API, or inject HTML with the innerHTML property of some element. For example, using the DOM API:

HTML Code:

<html>
<head>
<script>
var person = {age: 30, sex: "male", location: "Wherever I please"};
window.onload = function() {
  var output = document.getElementById("output");
  var table = output.appendChild(
    document.createElement("table"));
  var tbody = table.appendChild(
    document.createElement("tbody"));
  var tr = tbody.appendChild(
    document.createElement("tr"));

  for (var key in person) {
    var td = tr.appendChild(
      document.createElement("td"));
    td.appendChild(document.createTextNode(person[key]));
  }
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<div id="output"></div>
</body>
</html>

There are much more elegant ways of doing the same thing, but this is the dogmatic approach.

**motion-ex** · Jul 17, 2007, 07:51

thank you very much indeed i realised my mistake earlier when going through different tutorials.... when is it ok to use document.write though?

**kyberfabrikken** · Jul 17, 2007, 08:50

Originally Posted by motion-ex

when is it ok to use document.write though?

Never. It works in a completely different way than all other javascript functions, and you always have alternatives. In ye old days it had greater support by browsers, so you could use it for making code more portable. This isn't an issue today though, so just stear clear of it.

**motion-ex** · Jul 18, 2007, 01:01

thank you for this advice i will indeed stay away from document.write... it's just that in the project i do for my internship i actually have to take some of the code that was writen by the previous developper and it has a lot of document.write... well anyway i see that javascript is not a little toy for web developper it's actually a real language with its own complexities!

**motion-ex** · Jul 18, 2007, 01:06

One thing also... i would like to know if JSON is to be used onlyas a replacement to XML i.e. in other circountances i can not use JSOn to represent a javascript objezct for example?

**Pepejeria** · Jul 18, 2007, 04:19

JSON is not only used as a replacement to XML. JSON is basically a JavaScript object defined with a certain syntax.

**motion-ex** · Jul 18, 2007, 21:04

thank you indeed i wanted to use that syntax to define objects in my scripts... not sure of its usefulness hough but since json will be used as the data exchange formats in the app. we're building i thought it will be better to go on writing object in that format in the entire script

**motion-ex** · Jul 18, 2007, 21:13

what's the best way to generate an object from info retrieved in a database?
the var theobject = new object way or the var theobject = function(theobject)
?

**kyberfabrikken** · Jul 19, 2007, 01:12

Originally Posted by motion-ex

what's the best way to generate an object from info retrieved in a database?

Assuming you're using PHP, load the data into an associative array, and use the json-extension to transform it into JSON. It's almost a one-liner, once you have it figured out.

**motion-ex** · Jul 19, 2007, 21:32

indeed! thank u

**motion-ex** · Jul 20, 2007, 02:42

Code JavaScript:

function TagLink(url,title,date,zone,tableCible){
	this.url = url;
	this.title = title;
	this.date = date;
	this.zone = zone;
	this.tableCible= tableCibe; //where tablecible is a 2 dimension array
}

is it ok to write this?

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