HTML DOM parentElement Property
Example
Get the node name of the parent element of a <li> element:
var x = document.getElementById("myLI").parentElement.nodeName;
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More "Try it Yourself" examples below.
Definition and Usage
The parentElement property returns the parent element of the specified element.
The difference between parentElement and parentNode, is that parentElement returns null if the parent node is not an element node:
document.body.parentNode; // Returns the <html> element
document.body.parentElement; // Returns the <html> element
document.documentElement.parentNode; // Returns the Document node
document.documentElement.parentElement; // Returns null (<html> does not have a parent ELEMENT node)
In most cases, it does not matter which property you use, however, parentNode is probably the most popular.
This property is read-only.
Browser Support
The numbers in the table specify the first browser version that fully supports the property.
| Property | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| parentElement | 1.0 | Yes | 9.0 | Yes | Yes |
Syntax
node.parentElement
Technical Details
| Return Value: | An Element object, representing the parent element node of a node, or null if the node has no parent |
|---|---|
| DOM Version | DOM Level 4 Element Object |
More Examples
Example
Click on an element (<span>) to hide its parent element (<div>):
<div>
<span onclick="this.parentElement.style.display = 'none';">x</span>
</div>
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