how to intercept innerHTML changes in javascript?

Question

I need to intercept any changes in the content of a cell inside my webpage.

The following code shows me that addEventListener does not work.

function modifyText() {
alert("!");
}

var el=document.getElementById("mycell");
el.innerHTML="a"
el.addEventListener("change", modifyText, false); 
// After next instruction I expect an alert message but it does not appear...
el.innerHTML="Z";

The code is just a toy example. In my real case the changes in the page (and therefore in the cell, too) are made by a webapp that I have NO control over.

Answer 1

You can't listen to a DOM element change that way. change event is mostly for inputs

There is some other new DOM 3 events that would help you on this.

Here is some:

DOMCharacterDataModified //Draft

DOMSubtreeModified

Answer 2

Does this Most efficient method of detecting/monitoring DOM changes? help?

It seems like there aren't any 100% cross browser solutions, and one of the workarounds is to poll the elements of interest to see if their innerHTML.length changes!