getElementById in SVG document

Question

I wrote a svg file like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<!DOCTYPE svg PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD SVG 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/1.1/DTD/svg11.dtd">

<svg width="1280pt" height="650pt" viewBox="0 0 1280 650" id="svg1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" version="1.1"><script xlink:href="pathToPolyline.js"/><script><![CDATA[

alert(document);//returns [object SVG document]

//and tried

var path=document.getElementById('path1');//the problem line

alert(path);

]]></script>
<path id="path1" fill="#000000" d=" M 0.00 0.00 L 1280.00 0.00 L 1280.00 449.99 C 1276.46 444.19 1270.19 441.08 1265.59 436.31 C 1264.17 429.73 1265.36 422.91 1266.42 416.36 C 1267.19 413.43 1264.94 410.65 1262.45 409.42 C 1255.44 405.63 1247.99 402.68 12 .....

As in the comment line alert(document); alerts [object SVG document].

But:

var path=document.getElementById('path1');
alert(path);

alerts null.

I also tried to put svg in an html page, also in an xhtml page, tried more thing but no result for now.

Any idea?

Answer 1

At the time you call var path=document.getElementById('path1');, the path1 is not defined yet (it comes later on).

You ought to put the code after the path definition.

However I'm not sure if you can put <script> tags inside a <svg>.