HTML DOM nodeType Property
Example
Get the node type of the body element:
var x = document.getElementById("myP").nodeType;
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 |
More Examples
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;
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>
Try it Yourself »
Related Pages
HTML DOM reference: node.nodeName Property
HTML DOM reference: node.nodeValue Property
HTML DOM reference: node.childNodes Property
