I have a div which contains message updates sent by users. How can I assign a javascript variable to this div so that it's value is always the current content of the div which is consistently updating with messages?
var x = document.getElementById("MessageBox"); // only equals value at the
// time rather than present value
The easiest way to accomplish this would be to assign an .onchange event handler to the element, then assign the node's value to a variable held outside the scope of the function:
var myMSGvalue;
document.getElementById("MessageBox").onchange = function () {
myMSGvalue = this.value;
// this will work for <input>, not <div>
}
If you really need to assign your data to an html element, you should use an <input type="hidden">.
However, it would be much better to assign the data to a variable before you append it to the page. For example, let's say you have a web socket:
var messages = [];
socket.on("msg", function (msg) {
messages.push(msg);
// msg: { content: "Hello!", author: "notSure" };
functionToAppendToPage(msg);
})
Now, you can see all the messages received in messages and messages[messages.length - 1] will return the last message received (provided at least one message has been received).
msMSGvalue
If your message box field getting data using any Api or through Ajax. You can update the variable before assigning value to message box.
