JavaScript DOM

Document Object Model or DOM is a Browser API to get, change and update the HTML Elements or attributes on runtime in a browser window. We can see these changes in browser inspect, but not in source code. DOM is a Tree Like Structure of HTML Document, with connected nodes, as shown below. Everything in a webpage page is treated as a node, i.e. HTML tags, text inside, attributes and child tag. HTML Tag, (<HTML>) is the Root Node, and all other elements are descendant node of html tag. Even doctype and comments are also nodes.

The webpage is document here and all elements and attributes inside are document nodes. These nodes can be element node, text node, attribute node, etc. Using document, we can manipulated the content in webpage.

JS DOM or document object modal
JavaScript Document Object Model ( DOM )

To access DOM Element, or Elements, document or window.document keyword is used.

DOM Element Example


<h1 class="heading">Javascript <span>DOM</span></h1>
	
 h1         = Element Node
 class      = Attribute Node
 Javascript = Text Node
 span       = Child Node
 DOM        = Text Node

DOM Methods


document

JS document object is build-in object in client side javascript to access html elements in javascript. document object can get anything in webpage loaded, like elements, attributes, doctype, comments, charset, etc.

document object is only available in client side javascript, not in Node JS. The source code is the code downloaded from web browser. But the code available in browser inspect in elements tab is DOM. DOM can be manipulation, but source code in not.

▶#document

    console.log(document);

document.write

document.write() method is used to write something in current document or DOM node. If <script> tag is inside body, document.write() will write plain text in body node. But if <script> tag is in another element, like p, div etc, document.write() will write plain text in that p or div element node.

If webpage is already loaded, document.write() method will replace the current document.

Hello JS

document.write("Hello JS");

Hello JS in h1 tag


document.write("<h1>Hello JS in h1 tag</h1>");

Hello JS, with i tag in p.


document.write("<p>Hello JS, with <i>i tag</i> in p.</p>");

As document.write() method will replace the current document, we usually avoid using document.write() method.



Getting Elements from DOM

document method or window.document is used to access any element in a webpage. These Method returns a node object or a node list( array like structure ) or null (if id is not found).

document.body


 var x=document.body;
 x.nodeName		// return BODY
 

document.title

Get webpage title


 var x=document.title;            // return title of webpage 
 

Change webpage title


 document.title="new title";          
 

document.images


 var y=document.images;
 y.length       // return no of images
 y[0].nodeName  // return IMG
 y[0].nodeType  // return 1 
	

DOM Shortcut Methoods

Method Use
document.body To access body element
document.head To access head element
document.characterSet return character set of web document
document.images return list of all images in document.
document.links return list of all hyperlinks in document.
document.anchors return list of only anchor tags in document.
document.forms return list of form tags in document.
document.contact return form element with name="contact" in document.
<form name="contact"></form>
document.contact.username return form control with name="username" on contact form of document.
<form name="contact">
    <input type="text" name="username">
</form>

nodeType

Code Type
1 element
2 attribute
3 text
8 comment
9 document
10 doctype

document.body is node object. But document.images is array-like object. To access individual element inside list, use index notation. Exp, document.images[0] means first image of webpage.


Get Element By Id

document.getElementById() return the element with unique id that is given as an argument. It is supported in all major browsers. As per w3c specifications, id attribute and id's value is unique. Get Element By Id will call an element with his unique id.

<h1 id="heading">Javascript DOM</h1>
<script>    
 var x=document.getElementById("heading");
</script>

Get Elements By Tag Name

document.getElementsByTagName() return list of all elements with tag name given as an argument. It is supported in all major browsers.

<p> Para 1</p>
<p> Para 2</p>
<script>    
 var x=document.getElementsByTagName("p");
 x.length;			// return 2,			
 var p1=x[0];        //return first p element;
 var p2=x[1];        //return second p element;
</script>

Get Elements By Class Name

document.getElementsByClassName() return list of all elements with class name given as an argument. It is supported in all major browsers, except IE 8 and below doesn't support.

<p class="para"> Para 1</p>
<p class="para"> Para 2</p>
<script>    
 var x=document.getElementsByClassName("para");
 var p1=x[0];        //return first p element;
 var p2=x[1];        //return second p element;
</script>

The datatype of document.getElementsByTagName and document.getElementsByClassName is an array-like objects. Array like means they have length property and indexed elements. But if we check their datatype, it is not array.


Query Selector

document.querySelector() return first element in document with tag, id, class or any css selector given as an argument. querySelector is pure CSS selector based. To call element by id, use "#id", to call an element with class name, use ".classname" and to call element by tagname, use "tagname". It is supported in all major browsers, except IE 7 and below. IE 8 and above support CSS 2.1, but I.E 7 doesn't support querySelector.

<p class="para" id="para1"> Para 1</p>
<p class="para" id="para2"> Para 2</p>

<script>    
document.querySelector('p');             first p tag;
document.querySelector('#para1');        id para1
document.querySelector('.para');         first para class 
document.querySelector('ul li');        first li of first ul 
document.querySelector('ol > li');        first child li of ol 
document.querySelector('[disabled]');        first disabled element 

document.querySelector('p:last-child');    last child p element 
document.querySelector('p:nth-child(2)');  second p element 
</script>

Query Selector All

document.querySelectorAll() return list of elements in document with tag, id, or class name given as an argument. querySelectorAll() returns data in array-like structure, but not array. It is pure CSS selector based. document.querySelectorAll method is supported in all major browsers, except IE 7 and below. IE 8 and above support CSS 2.1, but 7 doesn't.

<p class="para"> Para 1</p>
<p class="para"> Para 2</p>
<p> Para 3</p>

<script>    
 var x=document.querySelectorAll('p');     // all p elements

 var y=document.querySelectorAll('.para');  // all p with class para
 
 x.length         // return 3 
 y.length         // return 2 
 
</script>

Iterate each element in querySelectorAll

To iterate each element in querySelectorAll , we should use forEach method. forEach is a loop used to iterate Arrays or Objects. querySelectorAll returns a Array Like list, which supports forEach Method.

forEach methods first parameter is Callback Function with parameter in Callback.

Para 1

Para 2

Para 3


    <p> Para 1</p>
    <p> Para 2</p>
    <p> Para 3</p>

<script>
    document.querySelectorAll('p').forEach(function(i){
        console.log(i);
    });
</script>

querySelector, querySelectorAll are supported in IE 8 and above browsers. getElementsByClassName is supported in IE 9 and above browsers only.


Navigating DOM TREE

Javascript can Navigate DOM. All Node Objects have various properties and methods. All these nodes are interconnected. An element node can have children nodes, sibling nodes, parent nodes etc.

Node Property Use
childNodes return list of all children nodes connected, including text nodes.
children return only element nodes of children connected, excluding text nodes
firstElementChild return first child element of node
lastElementChild return last element child of a node
parentNode return parent node of a node
nextElementSibling return next adjacent element sibling of a node, will return null if node is last child.
previousElementSibling return previous adjacent element sibling of a node, will return null if node is first child.

DOM Node Properties

Node Property Use
innerHTML get text content and children nodes of element as string
textContent get text content of node as string
value get value of inputs, select, checkbox, radio buttons, textarea as string
checked check checked state of radio and checkbox as true or false
id get value of id attribute
classList get values of class attribute in array. use add(), remove() and toggle() to modify class.
className get values of class attribute as string
src get source of img, audio, video, iframe.
width width of img, video, iframe.
height height of img, video, iframe.
alt alt of img tag.
size size of input and select.
maxLength max-length input and textarea.
dataset object with all custom data attributes

DOM Attributes

To get value of an attribute, change attribute value and remove attribute, JavaScript is having following methods.

Node Property Use
getAttribute()get attribute value, parameter should be attributes name.

document.body.getAttribute("title");                
            
setAttribute()set attributes value, two parameter required

document.body.setAttribute("title","this is body");                
            
removeAttribute() remove attribute and attributes value. one parameter required

document.body.removeAttribute("title");                
            

Always use two parameters in setAttribute. For boolean attributes, use blank as second parameter. See exp

document.querySelector("#username").setAttribute("disabled","");

createElement

document.createElement is used to create a new element in dom. Any html element or custom element can be created using createElement method.

appendChild method is used to append the element created.


const p=document.createElement("p");    // create element
document.body.appendChild(p);          // append element

createElement Example


<div class="marquee"></div>
<script>
    const m=document.createElement("marquee");
    m.innerHTML="This is marquee";    

    document.querySelector(".marquee").appendChild(m); 
</script>        

append()

In ES6, we can also use append() to append element or text in element node. Its different from appendChild as appendChild can only insert node.

This is text


<script>
    const m=document.createElement("i");
    m.append("This is text");    

    document.querySelector(".exp").append(m); 
</script>       

para hello, again hello


    <p>para</p>    
<script>    
    document.querySelector("p").append(' hello,'); 
    document.querySelector("p").append(' again hello'); 
</script>       

prepend()

In ES6, we can use prepend() also to prepend element or text in element node. Like append insert ar ending, prepend insert att beginning..

12para


    <p>para</p>    
<script>
    document.querySelector("p").prepend(2); 
    document.querySelector("p").prepend(1); 
</script>       

remove()

remove() method of DOMElement remove element from DOM. If Element is not in DOM, we cannot see it in browser inspect.

Removed Element from DOM is not same as element with display:none. Display none only hide element, but it stay in DOM.

Heading

Paragraph


    const p=document.querySelector('section p');
    
    p.remove();