Utility Methods

Prototype provides a number of “convenience” methods. Most are aliases of other Prototype methods, with the exception of the $ method, which wraps DOM nodes with additional functionality.

These utility methods all address scripting needs that are so common that their names were made as concise as can be. Hence the $-based convention.

The most commonly used utility method is without doubt $(), which is, for instance, used pervasively within Prototype’s code to let you pass either element IDs or actual DOM element references just about anywhere an element argument is possible. It actually goes way beyond a simple wrapper around document.getElementById; check it out to see just how useful it is.

These methods are one of the cornerstones of efficient Prototype-based JavaScript coding.

Take the time to learn them well.

Topicindex

$

$(id | element) -> HTMLElement

$((id | element)...) -> [HTMLElement...]

If provided with a string, returns the element in the document with matching ID; otherwise returns the passed element. Takes in an arbitrary number of arguments. All elements returned by the function are extended with Prototype DOM extensions.

$$

$$(cssRule...) -> [HTMLElement...]

Takes an arbitrary number of CSS selectors (strings) and returns a document-order array of extended DOM elements that match any of them.

$A

$A(iterable) -> actualArray

Accepts an array-like collection (anything with numeric indices) and returns its equivalent as an actual Array object. This method is a convenience alias of Array.from, but is the preferred way of casting to an Array.

$F

$F(element) -> value

Returns the value of a form control. This is a convenience alias of Form.Element.getValue. Refer to it for full details.

$H

$H([obj]) -> EnumerableHash

The only way to obtain a hash (which is synonymous to “map” or “associative array” for our purposes). Returns a new object featuring all the methods in the Hash and Enumerable modules. If an original object was passed, clones all its properties in the result before mixing in the modules.

$R

$R(start, end[, exclusive = false]) -> ObjectRange

Creates a new ObjectRange object. This method is a convenience wrapper around the [ObjectRange](/api/objectRange constructor, but $R is the preferred alias.

$w

$w(String) -> Array

Splits a string into an Array, treating all whitespace as delimiters. Equivalent to Ruby's %w{foo bar} or Perl's qw(foo bar).

Try.these

Try.these(Function...) -> firstOKResult

Accepts an arbitrary number of functions and returns the result of the first one that doesn't throw an error.

document.getElementsByClassName

document.getElementsByClassName(className[, element]) -> [HTMLElement...]

Retrieves (and extends) all the elements that have a CSS class name of className. The optional element parameter specifies a parent element to search under.

Prototype API 1.5.0 - prototypejs.org