The Element
method querySelectorAll()
returns a static (not live) NodeList
representing a list of elements matching the specified group of selectors which are descendants of the element on which the method was called.
Note: This method is implemented based on the ParentNode
mixin's querySelectorAll()
method.
Syntax
elementList = parentNode.querySelectorAll(selectors);
Parameters
selectors
- A
DOMString
containing one or more selectors to match against. This string must be a valid CSS selector string; if it's not, aSyntaxError
exception is thrown. See Locating DOM elements using selectors for more information about using selectors to identify elements. Multiple selectors may be specified by separating them using commas.
Note: Characters which are not part of standard CSS syntax must be escaped using a backslash character. Since JavaScript also uses backspace escaping, special care must be taken when writing string literals using these characters. See Escaping special characters for more information.
Return value
A non-live NodeList
containing one Element
object for each descendant node that matches at least one of the specified selectors.
Note: If the specified selectors
include a CSS pseudo-element, the returned list is always empty.
Exceptions
SyntaxError
- The syntax of the specified
selectors
string is not valid.
Examples
dataset selector & attribute selectors
<section class="box" id="sect1"> <div class="funnel-chart-percent1">10.900%</div> <div class="funnel-chart-percent2">3700.00%</div> <div class="funnel-chart-percent3">0.00%</div> </section>
// dataset selectors const refs = [...document.querySelectorAll(`[data-name*="funnel-chart-percent"]`)]; // attribute selectors // const refs = [...document.querySelectorAll(`[class*="funnel-chart-percent"]`)]; // const refs = [...document.querySelectorAll(`[class^="funnel-chart-percent"]`)]; // const refs = [...document.querySelectorAll(`[class$="funnel-chart-percent"]`)]; // const refs = [...document.querySelectorAll(`[class~="funnel-chart-percent"]`)];
Obtaining a list of matches
To obtain a NodeList
of all of the <p>
elements contained within the element "myBox"
:
var matches = myBox.querySelectorAll("p");
This example returns a list of all <div>
elements within "myBox"
with a class of either "note
" or "alert
":
var matches = myBox.querySelectorAll("div.note, div.alert");
Here, we get a list of the document's <p>
elements whose immediate parent element is a div
with the class "highlighted"
and which are located inside a container whose ID is "test"
.
var container = document.querySelector("#test"); var matches = container.querySelectorAll("div.highlighted > p");
This example uses an attribute selector to return a list of the iframe
elements in the document that contain an attribute named "data-src"
:
var matches = document.querySelectorAll("iframe[data-src]");
Here, an attribute selector is used to return a list of the list items contained within a list whose ID is "userlist"
which have a "data-active"
attribute whose value is "1"
:
var container = document.querySelector("#userlist"); var matches = container.querySelectorAll("li[data-active='1']");
Accessing the matches
Once the NodeList
of matching elements is returned, you can examine it just like any array. If the array is empty (that is, its length
property is 0), then no matches were found.
Otherwise, you can simply use standard array notation to access the contents of the list. You can use any common looping statement, such as:
var highlightedItems = userList.querySelectorAll(".highlighted"); highlightedItems.forEach(function(userItem) { deleteUser(userItem); });
Note: NodeList is not a genuine array, that is to say it doesn't have the array methods like slice, some, map etc. To convert it into an array, try Array.from(nodeList).
User notes
querySelectorAll()
behaves differently than most common JavaScript DOM libraries, which might lead to unexpected results.
HTML
Consider this HTML, with its three nested <div>
blocks.
<div class="outer"> <div class="select"> <div class="inner"> </div> </div> </div>
JavaScript
var select = document.querySelector('.select'); var inner = select.querySelectorAll('.outer .inner'); inner.length; // 1, not 0!
In this example, when selecting ".outer .inner"
in the context the <div>
with the class "select"
, the element with the class ".inner"
is still found, even though .outer
is not a descendant of the base element on which the search is performed (".select"
). By default, querySelectorAll()
only verifies that the last element in the selector is within the search scope.
The :scope
pseudo-class restores the expected behavior, only matching selectors on descendants of the base element:
var select = document.querySelector('.select'); var inner = select.querySelectorAll(':scope .outer .inner'); inner.length; // 0
Specifications
Specification | Status | Comment |
---|---|---|
DOM The definition of 'ParentNode.querySelectorAll()' in that specification. |
Living Standard | Living standard |
Selectors API Level 2 The definition of 'ParentNode.querySelectorAll()' in that specification. |
Obsolete | No change |
DOM4 The definition of 'ParentNode.querySelectorAll()' in that specification. |
Obsolete | Initial definition |
Selectors API Level 1 The definition of 'document.querySelector()' in that specification. |
Obsolete | Original definition |
Browser compatibility
Desktop | Mobile | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
querySelectorAll | Chrome Full support 1 | Edge Full support 12 | Firefox Full support 3.5 | IE
Full support
9
| Opera Full support 10 | Safari Full support 3.1 | 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 2 | Samsung Internet Android Full support 1.0 |
Legend
- Full support
- Full support
- See implementation notes.
- See implementation notes.
See also
- Locating DOM elements using selectors
- Attribute selectors in the CSS Guide
- Attribute selectors in the MDN Learning Area
Element.querySelector()
Document.querySelector()
andDocument.querySelectorAll()
DocumentFragment.querySelector()
andDocumentFragment.querySelectorAll()
ParentNode.querySelector()
andParentNode.querySelectorAll()
- Code snippets for
querySelector()