Start Building Professional
Web Apps Today

My data string has some special characters in it (&, <, etc.) and getOptionByLabel throws an Exception.  I tried escaping the character as well as putting in the html syntax for them but it still threw an exception.  If wanting to use an "&" what syntax should be sent to getOptionByLabel() so that it doesn't throw an exception?

Hello, 

Possibly the following example will help. 

if xml is

...

<option value="test"><![CDATA[some&amp;text]]></option>

...

The option can be got by:

var option = combo.getOptionByLabel("some&amp;text");

Combo shows "some&text" as option text on the page.

The xml is

...

<option value="28">Z&AA&123-&ZZ</option>

...

and the code to get the option is

var option = combo.getOptionByLabel("Z&amp;AA&amp;123-&amp;ZZ");

I have also tried

var option = combo.getOptionByLabel("Z&AA&123-&ZZ");

and this throws an exception as well.

I changed my xml to look like the following, but I am still getting an exception when calling combo.getOptionByLabel("Z&amp;AA&amp;123-&amp;ZZ");

<row id="112">
  <cell>ART889</cell>
  <cell>ARTEMIS1afdsfa</cell>
  <cell>TO BE ENTERED LATER1333</cell>
  <cell><![CDATA[Z&amp;AA&amp;123-&amp;ZZ]]></cell>
  <cell>TBD</cell>
  <cell>BWI</cell>
  <cell>2009-02-26</cell>
  <cell>2009-12-31</cell>
  <cell>2009-04-20 14:04:34</cell>
  <cell>BERNSCH</cell>
  <cell>ACTIVE</cell>
  <cell>1</cell>
  <cell>Airborne Systems</cell>
  <cell>NONE</cell>
  <cell>0</cell>
  <cell>0</cell>
  </row>

What is wrong with the above?

>> What is wrong with the above?

If the 4th column has "combo" type, you can use getOptionByLabel method as follows:

grid.init();

var combo.getColumnCombo(3);

combo.getOptionByLabel("Z&amp;AA&amp;123-&amp;ZZ");

Locally it works correctly.

If issue still persists, please provide the sample to support@dhtmlx.com (combo excell is available only in PRO version)

>> Is there a way to print out all of the options of the combo box?

Unfortunately there is not public method to get all options of combo.

But you can use the internal property - optionsArr array:

var text = [];

for(var i=0; i<combo.optionsArr.length; i++)
  text[i] = combo.optionsArr[i].text;
}

combo.getOptionByLabel("Z&amp;AA&amp;123-&amp;ZZ"); DOES NOT WORK but

combo.getOptionByLabel("Z&AA&123-&ZZ"); DOES work.  Why does it have to be stripped of the html syntax even though the grid contains the html syntax?

Hello,

Which combo version do you use ?

Please, try to use the latest combo (it can be downloaded from our website).

With it combo.getOptionByLabel("Z&amp;AA&amp;123-&amp;ZZ"); works.

If we don't use the CDATA syntax, it doesn't work.

We are using grid.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>

Please, check attached sample - all is correct here.

Sorry for teh misleading information.

Actually, yes, the &d is not shown. 

Possibly IE tries to read &D as some special symbol.

So, please, use CDATA to place the correct html into the combo:

A&amp;B&amp;C&amp;D

If you don't use it,  A&B&C&D  is placed into the combo.

Also,

<cell><![CDATA[A&B&C&D]]></cell>

in the xml file doesn't work which it should

\\emportalt\Website\wlibs\cots\dhtmlx\dhtmlxGrid\doc\articles\Handling_special_characters.html

Hello,

Combo gets the option data as innerHTML. So, please, use:

Please, you<cell><![CDATA[A&amp;B&amp;C&amp;D]]></cell>

rotxt is a pure text editor (without html support), but combo doesn't provide such a mode. 

Could you please direct me to documentation that lists and explains the column types (ro, rotxt, etc.)?  Before I was using "ro" for the text in the grid with the ampersand and it was giving the behavior I have been describing to you, where it wasn't handling the ampersand as it should.  So, I found documentation describing how to handle special characters (in your documentation, Handling_special_characters.html) and it mentioned using rotxt.  I changed the type in the grid but I don't understand why the "rotxt", which is supposed to be for pure text, worked to parse a string with html syntax.  It would seem that the "ro" type should have worked since there are special characters, and it's not pure text.

It's a big deal for us to use CDATA because then we will have to start doing xslt transforms, and plus, the xml will not be in correct syntax.  So, we really don't believe we should have to do this.  Can you please explain to me why it doesn't work with valid xml?  Is there some sort of issue with the code?

The information about grid cell types is http://dhtmlx.com/docs/products/dhtmlxGrid/doc/excell_types.html

The same in the grid package is dhtmlxGrid/doc/excell_types.html.

>> So, we really don't believe we should have to do this. Can you please explain to me why it doesn't work with valid xml? Is there some sort of issue with the code?

Please, try to point your browser to the xml that you try to load into the combo. 

In case of <option...>A&amp;B</option> the browser will show <option...>A&B</option>

A&B is not valid html. This value the combo receives and puts as innerHTML.

In case of CDATA <option...><![CDATA[A&amp;B]]></option>  the browser will show <option...>A&amp;B</option>. A&amp;B is valid html.

If you don't want to use CDATA, you can try double escaping: <option...>A&amp;amp;B</option>

Possibly it'll help. 

Combo gets data from browser. And these are no ways to change this behavior.