Often web developers like to use:
document.getElementById('yourelement').style.display = 'none';
With jQuery there are easier ways to do this, but I'm talking just about plain JavaScript.
But suppose you're using some script that's encoded and prevents you from adding unique IDs into < div > tags, for example. This is the case with CBSubs, for Joomla. The files are encoded and for most DIVs there are no IDs, so we're left having to select them based on the CSS classes (in CBSubs you can assign each plan a unique CSS class).
Here's one way of doing it;
/*
Developed by Robert Nyman, http://www.robertnyman.com
Code/licensing: http://code.google.com/p/getelementsbyclassname/
*/
var getElementsByClassName = function (className, tag, elm){
if (document.getElementsByClassName) {
getElementsByClassName = function (className, tag, elm) {
elm = elm || document;
var elements = elm.getElementsByClassName(className),
nodeName = (tag)? new RegExp("" + tag + "", "i") : null,
returnElements = [],
current;
for(var i=0, il=elements.length; i<il; i+=1){
current = elements[i];
if(!nodeName || nodeName.test(current.nodeName)) {
returnElements.push(current);
}
}
return returnElements;
};
}
else if (document.evaluate) {
getElementsByClassName = function (className, tag, elm) {
tag = tag || "*";
elm = elm || document;
var classes = className.split(" "),
classesToCheck = "",
xhtmlNamespace = "http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml",
namespaceResolver = (document.documentElement.namespaceURI === xhtmlNamespace)? xhtmlNamespace : null,
returnElements = [],
elements,
node;
for(var j=0, jl=classes.length; j<jl; j+=1){
classesToCheck += "[contains(concat(' ', @class, ' '), ' " + classes[j] + " ')]";
}
try {
elements = document.evaluate(".//" + tag + classesToCheck, elm, namespaceResolver, 0, null);
}
catch (e) {
elements = document.evaluate(".//" + tag + classesToCheck, elm, null, 0, null);
}
while ((node = elements.iterateNext())) {
returnElements.push(node);
}
return returnElements;
};
}
else {
getElementsByClassName = function (className, tag, elm) {
tag = tag || "*";
elm = elm || document;
var classes = className.split(" "),
classesToCheck = [],
elements = (tag === "*" && elm.all)? elm.all : elm.getElementsByTagName(tag),
current,
returnElements = [],
match;
for(var k=0, kl=classes.length; k<kl; k+=1){
classesToCheck.push(new RegExp("(^|s)" + classes[k] + "(s|$)"));
}
for(var l=0, ll=elements.length; l<ll; l+=1){
current = elements[l];
match = false;
for(var m=0, ml=classesToCheck.length; m<ml; m+=1){
match = classesToCheck[m].test(current.className);
if (!match) {
break;
}
}
if (match) {
returnElements.push(current);
}
}
return returnElements;
};
}
return getElementsByClassName(className, tag, elm);
};
Call Examples
To get all elements in the document with a "info-links" class:
getElementsByClassName("info-links");
To get all div elements within the element named "container", with a "col" class.
getElementsByClassName("col", "div", document.getElementById("container"));
To get all elements within in the document with a "click-me" and a "sure-thang" class.
getElementsByClassName("click-me sure-thang");
That last one is very handy, because if your DIV contains multiple classes, you can use this to select the DIV you want even if it has no ID set.
