Hi,

I am not a programmer and just trying to understand some javascript.

I am using the javascript example below (link) to add html to a webpage:

http://www.dustindiaz.com/add-and-re...th-javascript/

No what I'm wondering is if I use that javascript example to add the word "Hi" to my webpage like this:

http://www.bazquirk.com/add_text_button.php

(By the way that page will just be a regular html page when I'm finished, it won't have the additional pho script on it).

So, the word "Hi" appears in the page. But would a PHP webscraper (one the retreives a specific word from html) be able to retreive that word if it is not part of the actual html?

Or would I need to somehow add updated pages via ftp to my server in order for the webscraper to work?

Is that word, "Hi" being added to the html, with the javascript I'm using?

Thanks for any help.

Tony

HTML and Javascript are both client side languages, so both you javascript and html should be retrievable.

Thank you.

But what I'm wondering is what that javascript is really doing. When you click on the button and add the word "Hi" to the page, is that word "Hi" really being added to the html of the page?

When you click the button, and the word "Hi" is added, then view the source code, you don't see that word "Hi" in the html document. Does that mean the webscrapper won't see it?

is that word "Hi" really being added to the html of the page

No.

What javascript does, is to modify the DOM (Document Object Model) tree to apply your changes, but the source of the DOM, your HTML is __NOT__ modified.

What this means, is that any search engine, browser that don't interpret javascript or scrapper will only see the document at his state on load time.
No modification made via javascript will be taken in account.

Thank you.

That's what I thought... Could you recommend an easy way to add a word to the html document by pressing a button?

I'm trying to figure out a way for my PHP webscraper script to be able to "see" a word or number that is added into the html document.

I thought maybe something like an automatic message posting script, however I want it to be invisible to the user who is pressing the button on my webpage.

(A user will press a button on my webpage which will add a new word or number to the html of my page, that new word is read by my PHP webscraping script.)

Thanks again.

Tony

I guess the easiest thing to do could be just creating a javascript "POST" button that would post a word directly into the html of the webpage?

Thanks.

yep it would, provided you had some server side code set to catch the submission and write to the file.


javascript being a client side operation cannot write files on the server.

Thanks.

Well I have a PHP script that is set up to "catch" the word that is posted.

Actually the PHP script is a "web scrapper" designed to retrieve a certain word.

Thanks again.
Tony