Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Users Search
Help Dashboard Sign In Sign Up
Q&A Code Reviews Meta
Q&A
Posts Tags Edits
Ask Question

Welcome to Software Development on Codidact!

Will you help us build our independent community of developers helping developers? We're small and trying to grow. We welcome questions about all aspects of software development, from design to code to QA and more. Got questions? Got answers? Got code you'd like someone to review? Please join us.

Comments on Understanding createTreeWalker method in the context of replacing strings (or parts of them)

Post

Understanding createTreeWalker method in the context of replacing strings (or parts of them)

+2
−0

I want to ensure I understand the following code; credit to user:m3g4p0p on Sitepoint, for this code:

const walker = document.createTreeWalker(
  document.body, 
  NodeFilter.SHOW_TEXT
)

let node;

while ((node = walker.nextNode())) {
  node.textContent = node.textContent.replace('a', 'b')
}

Exceptionally I have two questions:

  • How do you understand each stage of the code?
  • How does storing replaced strings in the node variable makes a change in the text appearing to the end user?
javascript dom replace
posted about 3 years ago
3y ago
deleted user
History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.
Why should this post be closed?

3 comment threads

"How do you understand each stage of the code?" (2 comments)
"How does storing replaced strings in a variable makes a change to the end user?" (2 comments)
Check this for a partial answer (1 comment)
"How does storing replaced strings in a variable makes a change to the end user?"
elgonzo‭ wrote almost 3 years ago · edited almost 3 years ago
copy link

Well, depends on the variable, doesn't it? I speculate that you refer to textContent, which is not "just" a variable, it is a property. Generally speaking, a property is kinda like an instance variable: it has a value that you can set and get. But only "kinda". Because properties allow custom implementations of a getter and/or a setter method (https://javascript.info/property-accessors). In other words, whenever some value is assigned to such a property, the property's setter method is being invoked. Whenever the value of the property is read, the property's getter method is being invoked. Whatever the setter and getter methods do beside storing and providing the property's value is also commonly called "side effect" (with respect to properties you can think of it like: a side effect of accessing the property).

elgonzo‭ wrote almost 3 years ago
copy link

(P.S.: Since it is unclear to me whether you actually were asking about textContent, and also due to the vagueness of the other question you posed, i decided to just write a comment. If the two questions are being clarified, i would transfer my comment to an answer, provided my comment still applies to the clarified questions.)