CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptdom
antonpug
antonpug

Reputation: 14286

How to access child nodes of a root element?

I am trying to access child nodes of a root element but I am unable to do so as the elements that come back are all "undefined" - including the array that is returned.

<html>
<head>
    <script>
        function dothis()
        {
        var elements = document.getElementsByTagName("body").parentNode.childNodes;
        alert(elements.length);
        }
    </script>
</head>
<body onload="dothis();">
    <p>Welcome</p>
    <ul>
        <li>hello</li>
    </ul>
</body>

</html>​

http://jsfiddle.net/PrPPM/1/

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1296

Answers (1)

James Allardice
James Allardice

Reputation: 165941

getElementsByTagName returns a NodeList (according to the spec. In some browsers e.g. Firefox I think it returns an HTMLCollection). In any case, what it returns is an array-like object. You need to access the element at a specific index:

var elements = document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0].parentNode.childNodes;

Upvotes: 1

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