--- /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/striper.js	Sat Oct 22 11:54:03 2011 +0100
@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+// Splintered striper 1.3
+// reworking of Zebra Tables and similar methods which works not only for tables and even/odd rows,
+// but as a general DOM means of assigning any number of classes to children of a parent element.
+// Patrick H. Lauke aka redux / www.splintered.co.uk
+// Distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
+
+
+/*
+ * Summary:      Core experiment function that applies any number of classes to all child elements
+ *               contained in all occurences of a parent element (either with or without a specific class)
+ * Parameters:   parentElementTag - parent tag name
+ *               parentElementClass - class assigned to the parent; if null, all parentElementTag elements will be affected
+ *               childElementTag -  tag name of the child elements to apply the styles to
+ *               styleClasses - comma separated list of any number of style classes (using 2 classes gives the classic "zebra" effect)
+ * Return:       none
+ */
+function striper(parentElementTag, parentElementClass, childElementTag, styleClasses)
+{
+	var i=0,currentParent,currentChild;
+	// capability and sanity check
+	if ((document.getElementsByTagName)&&(parentElementTag)&&(childElementTag)&&(styleClasses)) {
+		// turn the comma separate list of classes into an array
+		var styles = styleClasses.split(',');
+		// get an array of all parent tags
+		var parentItems = document.getElementsByTagName(parentElementTag);
+		// loop through all parent elements
+		while (currentParent = parentItems[i++]) {
+			// if parentElementClass was null, or if the current parent's class matches the specified class
+			if ((parentElementClass == null)||(currentParent.className == parentElementClass)) {
+				var j=0,k=0;
+				// get all child elements in the current parent element
+				var childItems = currentParent.getElementsByTagName(childElementTag);
+				// loop through all child elements
+				while (currentChild = childItems[j++]) {
+					// based on the current element and the number of styles in the array, work out which class to apply
+					k = (j+(styles.length-1)) % styles.length;
+					// add the class to the child element - if any other classes were already present, they're kept intact
+					currentChild.className = currentChild.className+" "+styles[k];
+				}
+			}
+		}
+	}
+}