Property or Attribute?

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  • Robert Mark Bram
    #1

    Property or Attribute?

    Howdy all!

    When do I call something a property and when do I call something an
    attribute?

    It has me a little confused at the moment!

    Any advice would be most appreciated!

    Rob
    :)


    Tags: None
    • Robert Mark Bram
      #2
      Re: Property or Attribute?

      Howdy David!
      [color=blue][color=green]
      > > When do I call something a property[/color]
      >
      > When its CSS.[/color]

      So I can say that the visibility property can be set to visible or
      invisible..
      [color=blue][color=green]
      > > and when do I call something an attribute?[/color]
      >
      > When its HTML or XML.[/color]

      And I can talk about the SELECTED attribute of a CHECK BOX..


      What about in JavaScript? Should I say a SELECT element has OPTION child
      elements or properties.. and is the selectedIndex of a SELECT be a property
      or attribute when I am accessing them in JavaScript?

      I guess I am also gettting confused between JavaScript objects (which I know
      are a collection of properties) and objects in the DOM. Do we say that
      either of these have attributes?

      Thank you very much for your response!

      Rob
      :)


        Comment

        • Lasse Reichstein Nielsen
          #3
          Re: Property or Attribute?

          "Robert Mark Bram" <relaxedrob@rem ovethis.optusho me.com.au> writes:
          [color=blue]
          > When do I call something a property and when do I call something an
          > attribute?[/color]

          The traditional usage is (if I understand it correctly):

          - Javascript objects have properties. In "obj.foo" or "obj['foo']",
          "foo" is the name of the property. Some properties are functions and
          are sometimes called "methods". That is the terminology used in, e.g.,
          the ECMS262 specification.

          - HTML tags have attributes. In "<body onload='init()' >", "onload='init() '"
          is an attribute. We call "onload" the attribute name and "'init()'" is the
          attribute value. That is the terminology used in the HTML specifications.

          - CSS rules have properties. In "#foo {width:50px;col or:red;}" the
          (CSS) properties are "width" and "color". That is the terminology used
          in the CSS specifications.


          Where it becomes fun is when you write things like:
          <div id="foo" style="color:re d;">
          and later
          document.getEle mentById("foo") .style.color="g reen";

          - "document" is a global variable (a property of the global object),
          and it refers to the document object.
          - "getElementById " is a property of the document object. It is a function
          so we call it a method.
          - The name "foo" refers to the id attribute of the div tag, and the DOM
          *element* (an object) returned by the function call is the DOM
          representation of the div *tag*.
          - The "style" property of the div element corresponds to the "style"
          attribute of the div tag.
          - the "color" property of the style element corresponds to the CSS property
          "color".

          /L
          --
          Lasse Reichstein Nielsen - lrn@hotpop.com
          Art D'HTML: <URL:http://www.infimum.dk/HTML/randomArtSplit. html>
          'Faith without judgement merely degrades the spirit divine.'

            Comment

            • Robert Mark Bram
              #4
              Re: Property or Attribute?

              Thank you so much for the reply Lasse,

              Your explanation clears up a lot of things for me - in particular the idea
              that although each technology maintains its own lingo, they crossover
              somewhat.

              Thank you again. :)

              Rob
              :)


                Comment

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