javascript - How to compare an html entity with jQuery

Question

I have the following html code:

<h3 id="headerid"><span onclick="expandCollapse('headerid')">&uArr;</span>Header title</h3>

I would like to toggle between up arrow and down arrow each time the user clicks the span tag.

function expandCollapse(id) {   
    var arrow = $("#"+id+" span").html(); // I have tried with .text() too
    if(arrow == "⇓") {     
        $("#"+id+" span").html("⇑");               
    } else {        
        $("#"+id+" span").html("⇓");               
    }
}

My function is going always the else path. If I make a javacript:alert of arrow variable I am getting the html entity represented as an arrow. How can I tell jQuery to interpret the arrow variable as a string and not as html.

Answer 1

When the HTML is parsed, what JQuery sees in the DOM is a UPWARDS DOUBLE ARROW ("?"), not the entity reference. Thus, in your Javascript code you should test for "?" or "u21d1". Also, you need to change what you're switching to:

function expandCollapse(id) {
    var arrow = $("#"+id+" span").html();
    if(arrow == "u21d1") {     
        $("#"+id+" span").html("u21d3");                           
    } else {            
        $("#"+id+" span").html("u21d1");                           
    }
}