Finding every "string" on a page and replacing it with another

Question

I'm making a Find and Replace chrome extension for on webpages, here's the find and replace code I have so far;

var elements = document.getElementsByTagName("*");
var find = "e";
var replace = "A";

for (var i = 0; i < elements.length; ++i) {
    if (elements[i].childNodes[0] !== undefined && elements[i].childNodes[0].nodeType === 3) {
        for (curText = elements[i].childNodes[0].nodeValue; curText !== curText.replace(find, replace); curText = curText.replace(find, replace)) {
            elements[i].childNodes[0].nodeValue = curText;
        }
    }
}

the only problem is it doesn't replace every "e" in every location. There are e's leftover in links and in places like div and span tags on the inside. I get the feeling I'm not looping through all the elements correctly, I'm not detecting strings correct, and that I'm not replacing the found strings correct. How could I fix this problem?

EDIT: Alright, now, this is the current code. It works for the most part, the only problem is it doesn't work all over the page. You can open the JavaScript console and try it at

http://www.roblox.com/games/?SortFilter=default&TimeFilter=0&GenreFilter=1

The words on the side bar doesn't get changed.

var elements = document.getElementsByTagName("*");
var find = "e";
var replace = "A";

for (var i = 0; i < elements.length; ++i) {
    if (elements[i].childNodes[0] !== undefined && elements[i].childNodes[0].nodeType === 3) {
          elements[i].childNodes[0].nodeValue = elements[i].childNodes[0].nodeValue.replace(new RegExp(find, "g"), replace)
    }
}

EDIT: Okay, new code now! undefined appears in the console, and nothing gets changed, I found this on a google search, it was from a stack overflow question. Find all text nodes in HTML page

Code:

var find = "e";
var replace = "A";

function textNodesUnder(el){
  var n, a=[], walk=document.createTreeWalker(el,NodeFilter.SHOW_TEXT,null,false);
  while(n=walk.nextNode()) a.push(n);
  return a;
}

var nodes = textNodesUnder(document.body);
for (var i = 0; i < elements.length; ++i) {
    if (nodes[i].childNodes[0] !== undefined && elements[i].childNodes[0].nodeType === 3) {
          nodes[i].childNodes[0].nodeValue = nodes[i].childNodes[0].nodeValue.replace(new RegExp(find, "g"), replace)
    }
}

I have yet to test but it seems as I made a big mistake of leaving my childNodes precious code in the new one, without it, it should work.

Duplicate of http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7782310/find-and-replace-for-whole-page ? — Aaron Digulla, Sep 22 '14 at 15:03
I think you have to get the whole page source: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/866073/get-entire-content-of-page and after that you need to use `.replace` like you already did. — GuyT, Oct 01 '14 at 09:26
you access `nodes[i].childNodes`, but text nodes don't have child nodes — guest, Oct 01 '14 at 23:23

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 22 '14 at 11:46

2

String.replace replaces only the first instance. Try this:

  curText.replace(new RegExp(find, "g"), replace)

This is the regex version with "g" meaning global (all occurrance) replacement.

answered Sep 22 '14 at 11:46

closure

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So I can get rid of the loop that kept reusing replace until there were no more instances? Good! – warspyking Sep 22 '14 at 11:51
I'm getting the error TypeError: Object # has no method 'replace' – warspyking Sep 22 '14 at 11:51
Use elements[i].childNodes[0].nodeValue – closure Sep 22 '14 at 11:53
I have to go do something, I'll be back to check on this question after. All help while I'm gone will be appreciated! – warspyking Sep 22 '14 at 11:53
Okay thanks, see the edit in the question. It almost works, but not quite. This is great so far :D – warspyking Sep 22 '14 at 18:41
Please see this: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2579666/getelementsbytagname-equivalent-for-textnodes – closure Sep 23 '14 at 10:23
Thanks, I'm getting a bit used to JavaScript but it's only been a few weeks :P – warspyking Sep 23 '14 at 15:27
I gave up on this project, so I guess you can have the bounty and stuff. – warspyking Oct 02 '14 at 17:58

Finding every "string" on a page and replacing it with another

1 Answers1