[JS CS3] Trouble with getElements().length

Question

The "ScriptLabel.jsx" tutorial script has this code fragment:
var myPageItems = myPage.pageItems.item("myScriptLabel");
if(myPageItems.getElements().length != 0){
alert("Found " + myPageItems.getElements().length + " page items with the label.");
The script works fine as long as the page contains at least one pageItem with the label "myScriptLabel". However, if there are no labeled pageItems, the script fails because myPageItems.getElements().length is invalid.
I can't figure out how to test for the condition of no pageItems having the label "myScriptLabel" to avoid this error. What am I missing?
Thanks to anyone who can enlighten me!

Answer 1

Wow! It's a long time since I've looked at this, but it appears that you have to do something like this:
myPage = app.documents[0].pages[0];
myPIs = myPage.pageItems.item("myScriptLabel")
if (myPIs != null) {
  myPIs = myPIs.getElements();
} else {
  alert("Tough luck, there aren't any");
If there are no such items on the page you get null rather than an empty array. If there is just one this still works, but notice I had to use getElements() to get the separate items into an array.
You can use the .item(Name) construction to directly work on all the objects that match, such as:
myPage.textFrames.item("HitMe").contents = "Consider yourself hit.";
Dave