Inserting DOM Strings

Internet Explorer 6 supports the insertData() method. Operating on text nodes, it inserts a string into the text node data. You can specify the offset at which to insert, and the data to insert. Here is its syntax:

textObj.insertData(offset, data);

where:

• offset is a long integer value indicating the offset, in characters, from the beginning of the string, where to insert the new string.
• data is the string to insert.

Let's create a text node at the document level. We put the following line in the header of this tip:

txtObj = document.createTextNode
  ("Doc JavaScript Columns");

and then let's insert "BiWeekly " at offset 15. Click this button to make it happen in Netscape 6 or Internet Explorer 6. Click in Internet Explorer 5.x and get an error message:

Here is the definition of this button:

<FORM>
<INPUT TYPE="button" VALUE="Insert a String"
  onClick="javascript:handleClick()">
</FORM>

And here is how the event handler above is defined:

function handleClick() {
  txtObj.insertData(15, "BiWeekly ");
  alert(txtObj.data);
}

Next: How to append DOM strings