HTML DOM Access Nodes
With the DOM, you can access every node in an HTML document.
Accessing Nodes
You can access a node in three ways:
- By using the getElementById() method
- By using the getElementsByTagName() method
- By navigating the node tree, using the node relationships
The getElementById() Method
The getElementById() method returns the element with the specified ID:
Syntax
| node.getElementById("id"); |
The following example gets the element with id="intro":
Note: The getElementById() method doesn't work in XML.
The getElementsByTagName() Method
getElementsByTagName() returns all elements with a specified tag name.
Syntax
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node.getElementsByTagName("tagname");
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The following example returns a nodeList of all <p> elements in the document:
The following example returns a nodeList of all <p> elements that are descendants of
the element with id="main":
Example 2
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document.getElementById('main').getElementsByTagName("p");
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Try it yourself »
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DOM Node List
The getElementsByTagName() method returns a node-list. A node-list is an
array of nodes.
The following code selects all <p> nodes in a node-list:
Example
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x=document.getElementsByTagName("p");
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The nodes can be accessed by index number. To access the
second <p> you can write:
Try it yourself »
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Note: The index starts at 0.
You will learn more about node-lists in a later chapter of this tutorial.
DOM Node List Length
The length property defines the number of nodes in a node-list.
You can loop through a node-list by using the length property:
Example
x=document.getElementsByTagName("p");
for (i=0;i<x.length;i++)
{
document.write(x[i].innerHTML);
document.write("<br />");
}
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Try it yourself »
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Example explained:
- Get all <p> element nodes
- For each <p> element, output the value of its text node
Navigating Node Relationships
The three properties; parentNode, firstChild,
and lastChild, follow the document structure and allow short-distance travel in
a document.
Look at the following HTML fragment:
<html>
<body>
<p>Hello World!</p>
<div>
<p>The DOM is very useful!</p>
<p>This example demonstrates node relationships.</p>
</div>
</body>
</html>
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In the HTML code above, the first p element is the first child node (firstChild) of the body
element, and the div element is the last child node (lastChild) of the body element.
The parent node (parentNode) of the first p element and the div element, is the the body
element, and the parent node of the p elements inside the div element, is the
div element.
The firstChild property can also be used to access the text of an element:
Example
<html>
<body>
<p id="intro">Hello World!</p>
<script type="text/javascript">
x=document.getElementById("intro");
document.write(x.firstChild.nodeValue);
</script>
</body>
</html> |
Try it yourself »
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DOM Root Nodes
There are two special document properties that allow access to the tags:
- document.documentElement - returns the root node of the document
- document.body - gives direct access to the <body> tag
Try it yourself
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