How to find value's item in sortable with javascript

Question

I have a sortable where it was created with loaded from JSON files. Now I want to delete an item.

I receive from a textarea the element name that I have to cancel. I save in a variable namdel. With a for loop I am going to compare this variable with the name of the sortable.

The HTML code of the sortable:

<div id="sortparam">

<ul style="" class="ui-sortable" id="sortable">
    <li style="" id="1" class="ui-state-default"> <span class="ui-icon ui-icon-arrowthick-2-n-s"></span>Singular sensation</li>
    <li style="" id="2" class="ui-state-default"> <span class="ui-icon ui-icon-arrowthick-2-n-s"></span>Beady little eyes</li>
    <li style="" id="3" class="ui-state-default"> <span class="ui-icon ui-icon-arrowthick-2-n-s"></span>Little birds </li>
</ul>

</div>

The problem is how to read the items because if I read with:

var contapara=1;
var l = document.getElementById(contapara).innerHTML;
alert(l);

The program write in alert window:

<span class="ui-icon ui-icon-arrowthick-2-n-s"></span>Little birds

I want only Little birds.

Answer 1

var contapara=1;
var regex = /(<([^>]+)>)/ig;
var l = document.getElementById(contapara).innerHTML.replace(regex, "");
alert(l);

Regex is our friend :)

Answer 2

Try this:

var contapara = 3;
var l = $.trim($('#'+contapara).text());
alert(l); // Little birds

Instead of using document.getElementById, I'm using jQuery to get the element. I'm also using .text() (innerText or textContent) instead of .html() (innerHTML).