element.firstChild is returning '<TextNode …' instead of an Object in FF

Question

I wrote a tab system using some very basic Javascript and it runs like a champ in IE 8 but, in FireFox 3 I am coming up short. The pertitent HTML is as follows:

<         


        

Answer 1

With a an eye also on efficiency, this function returns firstChild element node of el

function firstChildElement(el)
{
    el = el.firstChild;
    while (el && el.nodeType !== 1)
       el = el.nextSibling;
    return el;
}