Javascript and CSS, using dashes

Question

I\'m starting to learn some javascript and understand that dashes are not permitted when naming identifiers. However, in CSS it\'s common to use a dash for IDs and classes

Answer 1

It's only in the cases where you can access the elements as properties that it makes a difference. For example form fields:

<form>
   <input type="text" name="go-figure" />
   <input type="button" value="Eat me!" onclick="...">
</form>

In the onclick event you can't access the text box as a property, as the dash is interpreted as minus in Javascript:

onclick="this.form.go-figure.value='Ouch!';"

But you can still access it using a string:

onclick="this.form['go-figure'].value='Ouch!';"