Reading <h:message values in javascript

In my jsp I have the following:

<h:messages id="detailError" styleClass="priority" showDetail="true" globalOnly="false" layout="list"/>

On a command link in the page I call a javascript. In the javascript I check to see if there are any error messages. Whether I'm generating error or not the length of h:messages is alway zero.

Here is the javascript:

var arr = new Array();

function onPopup(){
arr = document.getElementsByName('form1:detailError');
alert("total # of objects = " + arr.length);
}

What am I missing?

Thanks

You probably need to get the *children* of the element. Those will be the elements of the list. What does your firebug (or similar) tell you?

Ed