First off, I admit right now that I know nothing about javascript and apologize for my stupidity.

I have several text files (named like the states ie. Oklahoma.txt, Texas.txt, etc.). Each text file has partial html code for several list items (a a list of several cities in that state). I need to take the html list items from those text files and put them into a div depending on which state a user selects.

My question is, is it possible for me to get the html code from one of these text file and plug that data into a variable?

If so, shouldn't I be able to display the results by using something like: document.getElementById('cities_list').innerHTML=c ities;
??

there are several approaches.
The first using whatever your server supports for an SSI (server side include) or equivalent.
The other, is to use the so called AJAX technique to load the correct file as needed (on demand).

Whichever you use to get the data, you will also have to do a little DOM manipulation to display the data.

Thanks. I am using coldfusion. I found a way to read the text file and assign the contents of that text file into a coldfusion variable. I then can pass that variable to the javascript. This looks like it is working.

So I am passing a state name through as a variable from a link. Then I have to take the value of the state name and compare it with the value of the coldfusion variable I made for the text file. This works, but it is going to be one really really long if statement. Is there a better way to do this?

Example:

ColdFusion to Read a File (oklahoma and texas):

        <cflock name="text_file_cities" type="readonly" timeout="30">
        	<cffile action="read"
            	file="c:/filelocation/OK.txt"
                variable="Oklahoma"
                charset="utf-8">
        </cflock>

        <cflock name="text_file_cities" type="readonly" timeout="30">
        	<cffile action="read"
            	file="c:/filelocation/TX.txt"
                variable="Texas"
                charset="utf-8">
        </cflock>

ColdFusion variable to Javascript variable:

<cfoutput>
     var #toScript(Oklahoma, "Oklahoma")#;
</cfoutput>

Javascript code snippet:

function showdiv(state) { 
document.getElementById('cities_popup_container').style.visibility = 'visible'; 
document.getElementById('state_name').innerHTML=state;
		
if(state =='Oklahoma')
     document.getElementById('cities_list').innerHTML=Oklahoma          
 if(state =='Texas')
     document.getElementById('cities_list').innerHTML=Texas;
and so on.....
and so on.....
}

Link to page with javascript:

javascript:showdiv('Oklahoma')

javascript:showdiv('Texas')

And so on for most of the 50 states

Are the If Statements the best way to handle this?

Thanks!!
Stephanie

Hi Stephanie, to exploit that the states and variables are the same, try changing your function to this:

function showdiv(state) { 
document.getElementById('cities_popup_container').style.visibility = 'visible'; 
document.getElementById('state_name').innerHTML=state;
document.getElementById('cities_list').innerHTML=eval(state);
}

Then you can eliminate the ifs altogether.

Hope that helps,
Paul

Jackpot!!!

This is what I was hoping I could do. I was trying to google something like "how to set a variable to the value of a different variable" and was getting totally lost.

Thanks so much. It looks like this is working now!

-Stephanie

no problem :-)