HTML DOM Element children
Example
Get a collection of the <body> element's children:
const collection = document.body.children;
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More examples below.
Definition and Usage
The children property returns a collection of an element's child elements.
The children property returns an HTMLCollection object.
See Also:
The firstElementChild Property
The nextElementSibling Property
The previousElementSibling Property
HTML Nodes vs Elements
In the HTML DOM (Document Object Model), an HTML document is a collection of nodes with (or without) child nodes.
Nodes are element nodes, text nodes, and comment nodes.
Whitespace between elements are also text nodes.
Elements are only element nodes.
childNodes vs children
childNodes returns child nodes (element nodes, text nodes, and comment nodes).
children returns child elements (not text and comment nodes).
Siblings vs Element Siblings
Siblings are "brothers" and "sisters".
Siblings are nodes with the same parent (in the same childNodes list).
Element Siblings are elements with the same parent (in the same children list).
Syntax
element.children
Return Value
| Type | Description |
| Object | A HTMLCollection object. The collection of element nodes. The elements are sorted as they appear in the document. |
More Examples
How many children does "myDIV" have:
let count = document.getElementById("myDIV").children.length;
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Change the background of the second child element of "myDIV":
const collection = document.getElementById("myDIV").children;
collection[1].style.backgroundColor = "yellow";
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Get the text of the third child element (index 2) of a <select> element:
const collection = document.getElementById("mySelect").children[2].text;
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Loop all children of <body> and change their background:
const collection = document.body.children;
for (let i = 0; i < collection.length; i++) {
collection[i].style.backgroundColor = "red";
}
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Browser Support
element.children is a DOM Level 1 (1998) feature.
It is fully supported in all browsers:
| Chrome | IE | Edge | Firefox | Safari | Opera |
| Yes | 9-11 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
