JavaScript HTML DOM Elements

This page teaches you how to find and access HTML elements in an HTML page.

Finding HTML Elements

Often, with JavaScript, you want to manipulate HTML elements.

To do so, you have to find the elements first. There are a couple of ways to do this:

  • Finding HTML elements by id
  • Finding HTML elements by tag name
  • Finding HTML elements by class name
  • Finding HTML elements by HTML object collections

Finding HTML Elements by Id

The easiest way to find HTML elements in the DOM, is by using the element id.

This example finds the element with id="intro":

Example

var x = document.getElementById("intro");

Try it Yourself »

If the element is found, the method will return the element as an object (in x).

If the element is not found, x will contain null.

Finding HTML Elements by Tag Name

This example finds the element with id="main", and then finds all <p> elements inside "main":

Example

var x = document.getElementById("main");
var y = x.getElementsByTagName("p");

Try it Yourself »

Finding HTML Elements by Class Name

If you want to find all HTML elements with the same class name. Use this method:

document.getElementsByClassName("intro");

The example above returns a list of all elements with class="intro".

Note Finding elements by class name does not work in Internet Explorer 5,6,7, and 8.

Finding HTML Elements by HTML Object Collections

This example finds the form element with id="frm1", in the forms collection, and displays all element values:

Example

var x = document.getElementById("frm1");
var text = "";
var i;
for (i = 0; i < x.length; i++) {
    text += x.elements[i].value + "<br>";
}
document.getElementById("demo").innerHTML = text;

Try it Yourself »

The following HTML objects (and object collections) are also accessible:


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