Why is document.getElementById('tableId').innerHTML not working in IE8?

Question

I modify document.getElementById('').innerHTML with Java Script in a page. It's working fine in Firefox, but not IE8. Please see below for more details:

HTML Code:

<table>   <tr id="abc">      <td id="ccc" style="color:red;">ccc</td>   </tr> </table> 

Java Script code:

  document.getElementById('abc').innerHTML = '<td id="bbc" style="color:yellow;">abc</td>' 

When I run the JS code in Firefox, it will change the display word from 'ccc' to 'abc', but it's just not working in IE8, does anyone know why? Is there any way I can make this work in IE8 as well?

Answer 1

Since the problem is in IE8, see MSDN:

The property is read/write for all objects except the following, for which it is read-only: COL, COLGROUP, FRAMESET, HEAD, HTML, STYLE, TABLE, TBODY, TFOOT, THEAD, TITLE, TR.

(emphasis mine)

Colin's work-around (setting innerText on the td instead of innerHTML on the tr) is a good one in your case. If your needs become more complex, you'll have to resort to The Table Object Model.

Answer 2

Since TR's innerHTML is read-only as a few people have said, you are better off changing your markup to target the TD:

<table><tr><td id="changeme"> ... </td></tr></table> 

Then you can set the content of the TD as you wish via innerHTML, and change other properties by setting them on the DOM node:

var td = document.getElementById("changeme"); td.innerHTML = "New Content"; td.cssText = "color: red"; td.className = "highlighted"; 

You get the idea...

This saves you the overhead of destroying and creating an extra DOM element (the TD)