JavaScript: Get a Element's {Type, Name, Value}

Xah Lee, 2012-04-29

This page shows you how to get a HTML/XML element's {type, name, value}.

Node Type

Use ‹node›.nodeType to get a element's type. The ‹node› is a HTML element object.

The return value is a number. Usually 1 or 3. “1” means it's a HTML/XML element. “3” means its content.

Here's a complete list of return values:

Example:

var xx = document.getElementById("id63656");

console.log("type is:" + xx.nodeType);

console.log("firstChild type is:" + xx.firstChild.nodeType);

As of 2012-04-29, this works in all major browsers.

• https://developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM/Node.nodeType
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms534191(v=vs.85).aspx

Node Name

‹node›.nodeName returns the node's (tag) name (as string), if the node is a element node (nodeType returns 1). If it's a text node, the value is "#text".

var xx = document.getElementById("id43160");

console.log("name is:" + xx.nodeName);

console.log("firstChild name is:" + xx.firstChild.nodeName);

As of 2012-04-29, this works in all major browsers.

• https://developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM/Node.nodeName
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms534190(v=vs.85).aspx

Node Value

Use ‹node›.nodeValue to get the content of text node. For most other node types, it returns null.

var xx = document.getElementById("id82521");

console.log("node value is:" + xx.nodeValue);

console.log("firstChild node value is:" + xx.firstChild.nodeValue);

To change a HTML element's content, you can just set “nodeValue” to some text. See: JavaScript: Changing HTML Content Example.

As of 2012-04-29, this works in all major browsers.

• https://developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM/Node.nodeValue
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms534192(v=vs.85).aspx