DOM getElementsByTagName within a given class, getting all the elements with a certain tag that are within an element Options

[Jonathan Stegall]

Hello,

I've been looking around for a way to do this, and haven't found one yet. Here's the scenario:

I know that it's possible to do the following:

CODE

var parent = document.getElementByID("someid");
var child = parent.getElementsByTagName("p");

And then to interact with child elements in whatever way one desires. Like many people, I use the following function to get an array of elements that have a given class:

CODE

function getElementsByClassName(className, tag, elm){
    var testClass = new RegExp("(^|\\s)" + className + "(\\s|$)");
    var tag = tag || "*";
    var elm = elm || document;
    var elements = (tag == "*" && elm.all)? elm.all : elm.getElementsByTagName(tag);
    var returnElements = [];
    var current;
    var length = elements.length;
    for(var i=0; i<length; i++){
        current = elements[i];
        if(testClass.test(current.className)){
            returnElements.push(current);
        }    
    }
    return returnElements;
}

So, what I'd like to do is essentially this:

CODE

var parent = getElementsByClassName("myclass");
var child = parent.getElementsByTagName("p");

And then to have the ability to interact with child in the same way that I could in the other example. I thought this would work, but apparently getElementsByClassName doesn't return the items in the same way that getElementByID does, because I can't use the result as a parent. Does anyone know a way to do this?

Thanks so much,
Jonathan