Document.documentElement
returns the Element
that is the root element of the document
(for example, the <html>
element for HTML documents).
Syntax
const element = document.documentElement
Example
const rootElement = document.documentElement; const firstTier = rootElement.childNodes; // firstTier is a NodeList of the direct children of the root element // such as <head> and <body> for (const child of firstTier) { // do something with each direct child of the root element }
Notes
For any non-empty HTML document, documentElement
will always be an <html>
element. For any non-empty XML document, documentElement
will always be whatever element is the root element of the document.
Specifications
Specification | Status | Comment |
---|---|---|
DOM The definition of 'Document.documentElement' in that specification. |
Living Standard |
Browser compatibility
The compatibility table on this page is generated from structured data. If you'd like to contribute to the data, please check out https://github.com/mdn/browser-compat-data and send us a pull request.
Desktop | Mobile | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
documentElement | Chrome Full support 1 | Edge Full support 12 | Firefox Full support 1 | IE Full support 5 | Opera Full support 7 | Safari Full support 1 | WebView Android Full support 1 | Chrome Android Full support 18 | Firefox Android Full support 4 | Opera Android Full support 10.1 | Safari iOS Full support 1 | Samsung Internet Android Full support 1.0 |
Legend
- Full support
- Full support