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JavaScript

Posted by Ryan Scharfer
Ryan Scharfer
Courses Plus Student 12,537 Points

I thought this would be very simple, but I can't seem to get JS to write onto my HTML. Here is the simple code..

The button actually disappears, too.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
        <title>Write on Me</title>
        <script src="js/write.js" defer></script>
    </head>
    <body>

        <p id="paper" style="height:100px"></p>
        <button type="button" onclick="write();">Write something to the paragraph.</button>

    </body>
</html>

function write() {
    document.getElementById("paper").innerHTML="Here is some written text!";}
Ryan Scharfer
Ryan Scharfer
Courses Plus Student 12,537 Points

so I figured out if I rename the function something other than "write", it works. But I don't see anywhere on the web that that is a keyword.

5 Answers

Dave McFarland
STAFF
Dave McFarland
Treehouse Teacher
Dave McFarland
Dave McFarland
Treehouse Teacher

Hi Ryan Scharfer

This is a really interesting bug. I believe the onclick handler on the button is invoking the document.write() method and is overwriting the button element. For a quick test change <button type="button" onclick="write();"> to <button type="button" onclick="window.write();"> and you'll see that it works. The write() method isn't strictly a JavaScript reserved word -- it doesn't have anything to do with the JavaScript language, but it is a keyword that's used by the browser, in particular the document object.

Don Brubaker
Don Brubaker
2,518 Points
Don Brubaker
Don Brubaker
2,518 Points

it has been a while since I used js, but if I remember correctly ' write' is a key word used within the DOM document group. Proper usage would be as;

document.write('text in here writes directly to screen');

or you can pass variables

x = 'some text';

document.write (x);

would output 'some text'

Ryan Scharfer
PLUS
Ryan Scharfer
Courses Plus Student 12,537 Points
Ryan Scharfer
Ryan Scharfer
Courses Plus Student 12,537 Points

It is definitely behaving like a keyword in my program, but I can't find any list of keywords that includes it. Strange.

Don Brubaker
Don Brubaker
2,518 Points
Don Brubaker
Don Brubaker
2,518 Points

:)

as I said, it has been a while since I have used any of this. Thought I would take these courses to refresh my memory, I don't even know where to point you too.

This site does refer to it though http://www.webteacher.com/javascript/

Ryan Scharfer
PLUS
Ryan Scharfer
Courses Plus Student 12,537 Points
Ryan Scharfer
Ryan Scharfer
Courses Plus Student 12,537 Points

Thanks Dave. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't crazy. : )