HTML DOM firstElementChild Property
Example
Get the HTML content of the first child element of an <ul> element:
var x = document.getElementById("myList").firstElementChild.innerHTML;
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More "Try it Yourself" examples below.
Definition and Usage
The firstElementChild property returns the first child element of the specified element.
The difference between this property and firstChild, is that firstChild returns the first child node as an element node, a text node or a comment node (depending on which one's first), while firstElementChild returns the first child node as an element node (ignores text and comment nodes).
This property is read-only.
Tip: Use the children property to return any child element of a specified element. children[0] will produce the same result as firstElementChild.
Tip: To return the last child element of a specified element, use the lastElementChild property.
Browser Support
| Property | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| firstElementChild | 2.0 | 9.0 | 3.5 | 4.0 | 10.0 |
Syntax
element.firstElementChild
Technical Details
| Return Value: | A Node object, representing the first child element of an element, or null if there are no child elements |
|---|---|
| DOM Version | Core Level 3 Element Traversal |
More Examples
Example
Get the tag name of the first child element of a <div> element:
var x = document.getElementById("myDIV").firstElementChild.tagName;
document.getElementById("demo").innerHTML = x;
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Example
Get the text of the first element node of a <select> element:
var x = document.getElementById("mySelect").firstElementChild.text;
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