DOM: History of GetElementsByClassName
What Does getElementsByClassName Return?
As of 2019-05-30, on Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox:
getElementsByTagName
return HTMLCollection.getElementsByClassName
return HTMLCollection.getElementsByName
return NodeList.querySelectorAll
return NodeList.
// print if the DOM get element functions return node list or hmtl collection [ "getElementsByTagName", "getElementsByClassName", "getElementsByName", "querySelectorAll", ].forEach ((x => { let y = document[x] ("p"); console.log( `${x} → ${Reflect.apply ( Object.prototype.toString , y, [] )}`); }));
As of 2013-04-26, getElementsByClassName
in {Firefox, Internet Explorer} return HTMLCollection. {Chrome, Safari, Opera} return NodeList. Older versions of Firefox returns NodeList.
[see JS: Get Element by ID, Name, Class etc]
As of 2016-07-02, getElementsByClassName
in {Google Chrome, Firefox} returns HTMLCollection.
As of 2019-05-30, getElementsByClassName
in {Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox} returns HTMLCollection.
Even Browsers and W3C Are Confused
Here is what Mozilla says:
Note: While the W3C DOM 3 Core specification says elements is a NodeList that was simply because of a an attempt to have the “core” specification not depend on the “html” specification at that time. The DOM 4 draft says that elements is an HTMLCollection.
Gecko/Firefox currently returns a NodeList (Bug 162927) but starting with Gecko/Firefox 19, this method will return HTMLCollection (Bug 799464). Internet Explorer returns a HTMLCollection. WebKit returns a NodeList. Opera also returns a NodeList, but with a namedItem method implemented, which makes it similar to a HTMLCollection.
, from
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Element.getElementsByTagName
Here is WHATWG says as of 2016-07-02:
Elements is the better solution for representing a collection of elements. HTMLCollection is an historical artifact we cannot rid the web of.