If there is an HTML element with id="hello123", then this JS code prints the content of the element: console.log(hello123.innterHTML)
console.log(hello123.innerHTML);
<p id="hello123">hello this works 123</p>
I discovered this by happenstance, I would other wise have written:
hello123 = document.getElementById("hello123);
console.log(hello123.innerHTML);
What is the difference between the two? Is using getElementById better because it protects be in the case that hello123 is a variable already defined elsewhere that has nothing to do with an HTML element called hello123?
Elements with an id become Global properties of the window object in the Browser's Object Model (BOM). It is not "JavaScript" that makes this happen. Accessing an element with getElementById() uses the Document Object Model (DOM) API, which is standardized. The BOM is largely not standardized. Using the DOM is the best practice.