function findParentNodeRegex(regex, childObj) {
var testObj = childObj;
var count = 1;
while(!testObj.id.match(regex)) {
//console.log('My name is ' + testObj.id + '. Let\'s try moving up one level to see what we get.');
testObj = testObj.parentNode;
count++;
}
// now you have the object you are looking for - do something with it
//console.log('Finally found ' + testObj.id + ' after going up ' + count + ' level(s) through the DOM tree');
return testObj;
}


Suppose that you tapped an paragraph element that was nested like so and “target” points to the paragraph:

<div id="news1234"><div class="content"><p>Tap me!<p></div></div>

You can find the parent that matches the string “news” like so:

var newsParent = findParentNodeRegex(/news/,target);
console.log("Id is "+newsParent.id); // prints "Id is news1234"

I adapted the code from here

The solution was to use a Javascript redirect. The Javascript attaches an event listener to listen for the “load” event. When the admin page is finished loading, a page containing the CSV data is loaded. That page has a Content-Type of application/csv, so it downloads immediately, leaving the admin page open (at least in Safari 4).

In my Wordpress admin panel (this is a fragment of a plugin):
// setup Javascript redirect
$location='/wp/csv-output/?year='.$year.'&month='.$month;
?>
<script>
function addListener(element, event, listener, bubble) {
if(element.addEventListener) {
if(typeof(bubble) == "undefined") bubble = false;
element.addEventListener(event, listener, bubble);
} else if(this.attachEvent) {
element.attachEvent("on" + event, listener);
}
}
addListener(this, "load", function() { window.location="<?php echo $location ?>" });
addListener(document, "load", function() { window.location="<?php echo $location ?>" });
</script>
And in my CSV page (again, just a fragment):
ob_end_clean();
header("Content-type: application/csv");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=contact_data_$year_$month.csv");
header("Pragma: no-cache");
header("Expires: 0");
I found the javascript code here.

<form ... onsubmit="setTimeout('document.forms[0].submit()',2000);return false;">

but everytime I tried it, I got the following error:

Result of expression 'document.forms[0].submit' [[object HTMLInputElement]] is not a function.

This one had me stumped, until I realized what it was telling me… that my submit button was named “submit”.

<input type="submit" name="submit" id="Button1" />

I changed the name of the submit button and the problem went away.

<input type="submit" name="button1" id="Button1" />

Basically, Javascript provides a “convenience” by adding the names of the form inputs as children of the form. But this then clashes with preset function names, like the submit() function.