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Strip <script> tags from innerHTML using Prototype

Using Prototype, I'm trying to extract a piece of text from the DOM - this would normal be a simple $().innerHTML job, but the HTML is nested slightly.

<td class="time-record">
    <script type="text/javascript">
    //<![CDATA[
    document.write('XXX ago'.gsub('XXX', i18n_time_ago_in_words(1229311439000)));
    //]]>
    </script>
    about 11 months ago by <span class="author"><strong>Justin</strong></span>
</td>

In this case, innerHTML is going to pick up the JavaScript, which will cause all sort of problems.

What's the best/efficient/fastest way to extract about 11 months ago by <span class="author"><strong>Justin</strong></span> without the JavaScript?

Solution

  • Use innerHTML, and run it through stripScripts:

    var html = $$('td.time-record')[0].innerHTML.stripScripts()

    That would be useful for grabbing the html of the single cell. A more general solution that does the same but for all td.time-record elements would be:

    $$('td.time-record').pluck('innerHTML').invoke('stripScripts');

    which would return to you an array of each cell's html (with <script> elements removed) that you could then .join('') or iterate over.