The Node.removeChild()
method removes a child node from the DOM and returns the removed node.
Syntax
var oldChild = node.removeChild(child); OR node.removeChild(child);
child
is the child node to be removed from the DOM.node
is the parent node ofchild
.oldChild
holds a reference to the removed child node, i.e.,oldChild === child
.
The removed child node still exists in memory, but is no longer part of the DOM. With the first syntax form shown, you may reuse the removed node later in your code, via the oldChild
object reference.
In the second syntax form, however, there is no oldChild
reference kept, so assuming your code has not kept any other reference to the node elsewhere, it will immediately become unusable and irretrievable, and will usually be automatically deleted from memory after a short time.
If child
is actually not a child of the element
node, the method throws an exception. This will also happen if child
was in fact a child of element
at the time of the call, but was removed by an event handler invoked in the course of trying to remove the element (e.g., blur
.)
Errors thrown
The method throws an exception in 2 different ways:
-
If the
child
was in fact a child ofelement
and so existing on the DOM, but was removed the method throws the following exception:Uncaught NotFoundError: Failed to execute 'removeChild' on 'Node': The node to be removed is not a child of this node
. -
If the
child
doesn't exist on the DOM of the page, the method throws the following exception:
Uncaught TypeError: Failed to execute 'removeChild' on 'Node': parameter 1 is not of type 'Node'.
Examples
Simple examples
Given this HTML:
<div id="top"> <div id="nested"></div> </div>
To remove a specified element when knowing its parent node:
let d = document.getElementById("top"); let d_nested = document.getElementById("nested"); let throwawayNode = d.removeChild(d_nested);
To remove a specified element without having to specify its parent node:
let node = document.getElementById("nested"); if (node.parentNode) { node.parentNode.removeChild(node); }
To remove all children from an element:
let element = document.getElementById("top"); while (element.firstChild) { element.removeChild(element.firstChild); }
Causing a TypeError
<!--Sample HTML code--> <div id="top"> </div> <script type="text/javascript"> let top = document.getElementById("top"); let nested = document.getElementById("nested"); // Throws Uncaught TypeError let garbage = top.removeChild(nested); </script>
Causing a NotFoundError
<!--Sample HTML code--> <div id="top"> <div id="nested"></div> </div> <script type="text/javascript"> let top = document.getElementById("top"); let nested = document.getElementById("nested"); // This first call correctly removes the node let garbage = top.removeChild(nested); // Throws Uncaught NotFoundError garbage = top.removeChild(nested); </script>
Specifications
Specification | Status | Comment |
---|---|---|
DOM The definition of 'Node: removeChild' in that specification. |
Living Standard |
Browser compatibility
Desktop | Mobile | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
removeChild | Chrome Full support 1 | Edge Full support 12 | Firefox Full support 1 | IE Full support 5 | Opera Full support 7 | Safari Full support 1.1 | 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