Find the tag JavaScript is running in

Question

Generating HTML source on backend, I am using separate independent widgets.

I am simply including pieces of markup like this to the resulting HTML output.

 <div>
     I want to work with this DOM element
     <script>
          new Obj(/*but I can't get this <div> as a parameter! */);
     </script>
 </div>

I'm looking for a way to find the DOM element in which the obj is created (Without any unique IDs). This would add flexibility to my app and speed up the development. But is that technicaly possible in JavaScript?

Answer 1

You could seed an element in there and then get it's parent, and then remove the element.

<div>
 I want to work with this DOM element
 <script>
      document.write("<div id='UniqueGUID_3477zZ7786_' style='display:none;'></div>");
      var thatDivYouWanted;
      (function(){
       var target = document.getElementById("UniqueGUID_3477zZ7786_");
       thatDivYouWanted = target.parentNode;
       target.parentNode.removeChild(target);
      })();
      new Obj(/*but I can't get this <div> as a parameter! */);
 </script>
</div>

Answer 2

The following code works:

<script>
  function Obj(color) {
    var scriptTags = document.getElementsByTagName("script");
    var scriptTag = scriptTags[scriptTags.length - 1];
    // find parent or do whatsoever
    var divTag = scriptTag.parentNode;
    divTag.style.backgroundColor = color;
  }
</script>


<div>
  I want to work with this DOM element
  <script>new Obj("green");</script>
</div>
<div>
  I want to work with this DOM element
  <script>new Obj("yellow");</script>
</div>
<div>
  I want to work with this DOM element
  <script>new Obj("lime");</script>
</div>

This method has very simple code and has almost zero impact on performance.

Note: I am pretty sure this won't work IE6 (as far as I remember it does not support manipulating open tags).