Is .trim() valid for innerText?

Question

This is failing. Is my use of trim valid? The span is inside a table row.

 var x = document.getElementById('myRow');
 var r = x.getElementsByTagName('span')[1].innerText;

 if(r.trim() == ""){
   alert("on if")
 }

HTML

<tr id="header"> 
   <td><span>The Header</span></td>
</tr>
<tr id="myRow">
 <td><span>Sample</span></td>
 <td><span></span></td>
</tr> 

Answer 1

You're code works if coupled with the correct html

Sample HTMl:

<table>
    <tr id="header"> 
       <td><span>The Header</span></td>
    </tr>
    <tr id="myRow">
        <td><span>Sample</span></td>
        <td><span></span></td>
    </tr> 
</table>

JSFiddle:

https://jsfiddle.net/vfhogegd/4/

Note

Arrays start at index 0

Did you mean to refer to the first span? if so you need to use [0] instead of [1]

UPDATE

Based on your HTML, the issue is that you don't have <table> tags...

If you look at your console you will probably see the following error:

Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'getElementsByTagName' of null

If you do not have <table> tags around your <td> tags, it is invalid html, most browser will ignore your tags which is why your getElementByID isn't returning anything causing the rest of your function to fail