document.getElementById not working for <a> tag

Question

I'm very new to js so kindly help me with this.

I am trying to add a class to a tag using onClick.

The code is as shown below:

<a class="gkvSprite" href="#" id="abc" onClick="showhide('1')">Click 1</a>
<a class="gkvSprite" href="#" id="def" onClick="showhide('2')">Click 2</a>
<a class="gkvSprite" href="#" id="hij" onClick="showhide('3')">Click 3</a>

Now when i click i need to add a class called "selected" for the one i select. I tried using setAttribute and add class of jquery as well but was not successful

When i alert the document.getelementbyId(123) it gives out the link.

Can someone kindly help me?

Thanks in Advance
Alloi

Answer 1

Without seeing the code for showhide there is no way to see exactly what you're doing wrong. Since you mention jQuery, here is how to do what you describe with it:

$('.gkvSprite').click(function() {
  $(this).addClass('selected');
});

It's also worth noting that it's invalid to start an ID with a number.

Answer 2

id should begin with an alphabet.

Official specification

ID and NAME tokens must begin with a letter ([A-Za-z]) and may be followed by any number of letters, digits ([0-9]), hyphens ("-"), underscores ("_"), colons (":"), and periods (".").

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Also,

var element = document.getElementById('id');
element.className += "newClass";

The showhide() should do something like above.