The Node.childNodes
read-only property returns a live NodeList
of child nodes
of the given element where the first child node is assigned index 0.
Syntax
let nodeList = elementNodeReference.childNodes;
Examples
Simple usage
// parg is an object reference to a <p> element // First check that the element has child nodes if (parg.hasChildNodes()) { let children = parg.childNodes; for (let i = 0; i < children.length; i++) { // do something with each child as children[i] // NOTE: List is live! Adding or removing children will change the list's `length` } }
Remove all children from a node
// This is one way to remove all children from a node // box is an object reference to an element while (box.firstChild) { //The list is LIVE so it will re-index each call box.removeChild(box.firstChild); }
Notes
The items in the collection of nodes are objects, not strings. To get data from node objects, use their properties. (For example, to get the name of the first childNode: elementNodeReference.childNodes[1].nodeName
.)
The document
object itself has 2 children: the Doctype declaration and the root element, typically referred to as documentElement
. (In (X)HTML documents this is the HTML
element.)
childNodes
includes all child nodes—including non-element nodes like text and comment nodes. To get a collection of only elements, use ParentNode.children
instead.
Specifications
Specification | Status | Comment |
---|---|---|
DOM The definition of 'Node.childNodes' in that specification. |
Living Standard | No change |
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Specification The definition of 'Node.childNodes' in that specification. |
Obsolete | No change |
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 Core Specification The definition of 'Node.childNodes' in that specification. |
Obsolete | No change |
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 Specification The definition of 'Node.childNodes' in that specification. |
Obsolete | Initial definition |
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 | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
childNodes | Chrome Full support 1 | Edge Full support 12 | Firefox Full support 1 | IE Full support 5 | Opera Full support 7 | Safari Full support 1.2 | 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