[whatwg] Proposal: Adding methods like getElementById and getElementsByTagName to DocumentFragments
Currently, a DocumentFragment only inherits from Node, and thus loses methods like getElementById. However, the Selector API (http://www.w3.org/TR/selectors-api/) defines querySelector and querySelectorAll on document fragments. My proposal is to add getElementById (which makes sense, as the document fragment is a root node), getElementsByTagName (and its namespace-sensitive version), getElementsByClassName and getElementsByName - in short, all of the general selection methods available on the Document.
Re: [whatwg] Proposal: Adding methods like getElementById and getElementsByTagName to DocumentFragments
Because they may result in the same thing, but they have different semantic meanings. I want to get an element by its id, not run a CSS selector. I want to get elements by their tag names, not run a CSS selector. Besides my personal aversion towards selectors being in the DOM API, there's also the simple fact that it makes sense for document fragments to have these methods. - Original Message - From: Tab Atkins Jr. Sent: 06/28/13 09:06 PM To: Zirak A Subject: Re: [whatwg] Proposal: Adding methods like getElementById and getElementsByTagName to DocumentFragments On Fri, Jun 28, 2013 at 1:19 PM, Zirak A zi...@mail.com wrote: Currently, a DocumentFragment only inherits from Node, and thus loses methods like getElementById. However, the Selector API (http://www.w3.org/TR/selectors-api/) defines querySelector and querySelectorAll on document fragments. My proposal is to add getElementById (which makes sense, as the document fragment is a root node), getElementsByTagName (and its namespace-sensitive version), getElementsByClassName and getElementsByName - in short, all of the general selection methods available on the Document. Given that you have querySelector, why would you want the other functions? getElementById(foo) is just querySelector(#foo), getElementsByTagName(foo) is just querySelectorAll(foo), etc. ~TJ
Re: [whatwg] Proposal: Adding methods like getElementById and getElementsByTagName to DocumentFragments
My intention wasn't for this to be an argument whether the selectors API make anything before them obsolete. The intention was to make the API more consistent - if documents have a getElementById method, so should document fragments. I acknowledge that selectors let you write more complex queries, and that some developers prefer them. However, others (like me) prefer using the older methods like getElementById. As said, this is an attempt to make the API more consistent, given that we already have methods like getElementById. - Original Message - From: Tab Atkins Jr. Sent: 06/28/13 10:51 PM To: Zirak A Subject: Re: [whatwg] Proposal: Adding methods like getElementById and getElementsByTagName to DocumentFragments On Fri, Jun 28, 2013 at 2:28 PM, Zirak A zi...@mail.com wrote: Because they may result in the same thing, but they have different semantic meanings. I want to get an element by its id, not run a CSS selector. I want to get elements by their tag names, not run a CSS selector. There's no semantic difference between the methods. querySelector is simply a more powerful querying function than the old DOM methods, capable of doing everything the old methods did and much more. Besides my personal aversion towards selectors being in the DOM API, there's also the simple fact that it makes sense for document fragments to have these methods. That's far from obvious, given that I don't think it makes sense to spread those obsolete methods around any further. ~TJ
Re: [whatwg] Proposal: Adding methods like getElementById and getElementsByTagName to DocumentFragments
But that's a bit looking at it backwards. Selectors are supposed to be an abstraction over these methods, not the other way around. The point here is that document fragments are documents - so they should have a consistent API. Adding this isn't about backwards compatibility or anything of the sort. It's adding methods that people already use, because as said, not everyone uses selectors (and not just because of browser-compat). - Original Message - From: Tab Atkins Jr. Sent: 06/28/13 11:52 PM To: Zirak A Subject: Re: [whatwg] Proposal: Adding methods like getElementById and getElementsByTagName to DocumentFragments On Fri, Jun 28, 2013 at 4:45 PM, Zirak A zi...@mail.com wrote: My intention wasn't for this to be an argument whether the selectors API make anything before them obsolete. The intention was to make the API more consistent - if documents have a getElementById method, so should document fragments. I acknowledge that selectors let you write more complex queries, and that some developers prefer them. However, others (like me) prefer using the older methods like getElementById. As said, this is an attempt to make the API more consistent, given that we already have methods like getElementById. While consistency with the past is good, it shouldn't be fetishized. Adding methods means more code in the browsers, which is a non-zero cost. When the requested feature is literally 100% obsoleted by another feature that already exists, there's really no reason to add the requested feature. Note that you can add these yourself, if desired, by adding methods to the DocumentFragment prototype that are defined in terms of querySelector. ~TJ
