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HTML DOM nodeType Property

Element Object Reference Element Object

Example

Get the node type of the body element:

var x = document.getElementById("myP").nodeType;

The result of x will be:

1
Try it yourself »

More "Try it Yourself" examples below.


Definition and Usage

The nodeType property returns the node type, as a number, of the specified node.

If the node is an element node, the nodeType property will return 1.

If the node is an attribute node, the nodeType property will return 2.

If the node is a text node, the nodeType property will return 3.

If the node is a comment node, the nodeType property will return 8.

This property is read-only.


Browser Support

Property
nodeType Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Syntax

node.nodeType

Technical Details

Return Value: A Number, representing the node type of the node
DOM Version Core Level 1 Node Object

Node Types

Documents, elements, attributes, and other aspects of an HTML or XML document has different node types.

There are 12 different node types, which may have children of various node types:

Node type Description Children
1 Element Represents an element Element, Text, Comment, ProcessingInstruction, CDATASection, EntityReference
2 Attr Represents an attribute Text, EntityReference
3 Text Represents textual content in an element or attribute None
4 CDATASection Represents a CDATA section in a document (text that will NOT be parsed by a parser) None
5 EntityReference Represents an entity reference Element, ProcessingInstruction, Comment, Text, CDATASection, EntityReference
6 Entity Represents an entity Element, ProcessingInstruction, Comment, Text, CDATASection, EntityReference
7 ProcessingInstruction Represents a processing instruction None
8 Comment Represents a comment None
9 Document Represents the entire document (the root-node of the DOM tree) Element, ProcessingInstruction, Comment, DocumentType
10 DocumentType Provides an interface to the entities defined for the document None
11 DocumentFragment Represents a "lightweight" Document object, which can hold a portion of a document Element, ProcessingInstruction, Comment, Text, CDATASection, EntityReference
12 Notation Represents a notation declared in the DTD None

Node Types - Return Values

The return value of the nodeName and the nodeValue properties for each node type:

Node type nodeName returns nodeValue returns
1 Element element name null
2 Attr attribute name attribute value
3 Text #text content of node
4 CDATASection #cdata-section content of node
5 EntityReference entity reference name null
6 Entity entity name null
7 ProcessingInstruction target content of node
8 Comment #comment comment text
9 Document #document null
10 DocumentType doctype name null
11  DocumentFragment #document fragment null
12 Notation notation name null

NodeTypes - Named Constants

NodeType Named Constant
1 ELEMENT_NODE
2 ATTRIBUTE_NODE
3 TEXT_NODE
4 CDATA_SECTION_NODE
5 ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE
6 ENTITY_NODE
7 PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE
8 COMMENT_NODE
9 DOCUMENT_NODE
10 DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE
11 DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE
12 NOTATION_NODE

Examples

More Examples

Example

Get the node type of the <body> element:

var x = document.body.nodeType;

The result of x will be:

1
Try it yourself »

Example

Get the node types of the <body> element's child nodes:

var c = document.body.childNodes;
var txt = "";
var i;
for (i = 0; i < c.length; i++) {
    txt = txt + c[i].nodeType + "<br>";
}

document.getElementById("demo").innerHTML = txt;

The result of txt will be:

3    // text node
1    // element node
3    // text node
1    // element node
3    // text node
1    // element node
3    // text node
8    // comment node
3    // text node
1    // element node
3    // text node
1    // element node
3    // text node
1    // element node
3    // text node
Try it yourself »

Example

Get the node name, node value and the node type of the <div> element's first child node:

<div id="myDIV">This is a div element.</div>

<script>
var x = document.getElementById("myDIV").firstChild;
var txt = "";
txt += "The node name: " + x.nodeName + "<br>";
txt += "The node value: " + x.nodeValue + "<br>";
txt += "The node type: " + x.nodeType;
</script>

The result of txt will be:

The node name: #text
The node value: This is a div element.
The node type: 3
Try it yourself »

Related Pages

HTML DOM reference: node.nodeName Property

HTML DOM reference: node.nodeValue Property

HTML DOM reference: node.childNodes Property


Element Object Reference Element Object