Revision 668243 of ParentNode.children

<p>{{ DomRef("ParentNode") }}</p>
<p>The <code><strong>ParentNode.children</strong></code> read-only property returns a live {{domxref("HTMLCollection")}} of child elements of the given object.</p>
<p>The items in the returned collection are objects and not strings. To get data from those node objects, you must use their properties (e.g. <code>elementNodeReference.children[1].nodeName</code> to get the name, etc.).</p>
<h2 id="Syntax_and_values" name="Syntax_and_values">Syntax</h2>
<pre class="syntaxbox">var <em>elList</em> = elementNodeReference.children; </pre>
<p><var>elList</var> is an ordered collection of element objects that are children of the current element. If the element has no children, then <var>elList</var> contains no elements.</p>
<p>The <var>elList</var> is a variable storing the node list of children. Such list is of type {{ domxref("HTMLCollection") }}. The <code>children</code> attribute is read-only.</p>
<h2 id="Example" name="Example">Example</h2>
<pre class="brush: js">// pEl is an object reference to a &lt;p&gt; element
// So, first we check if the object is not empty, if the object has child elements
if (pEl.children.length) {
    var children = pEl.children;
    for (var i = 0; i &lt; children.length; i++) {
        // Do something with each child element as children[i]
        // NOTE: List is live, Adding or removing children will change the list
    }
}
</pre>
<h2 id="Specification">Specification</h2>
<table class="standard-table">
 <tbody>
  <tr>
   <th scope="col">Specification</th>
   <th scope="col">Status</th>
   <th scope="col">Comment</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
   <td>{{SpecName('DOM WHATWG', '#dom-parentnode-children', 'ParentNode.children')}}</td>
   <td>{{Spec2('DOM WHATWG')}}</td>
   <td>Initial definition.</td>
  </tr>
 </tbody>
</table>
<h2 id="Browser_compatibility">Browser compatibility</h2>
<p>{{ CompatibilityTable() }}</p>
<div id="compat-desktop">
 <table class="compat-table">
  <tbody>
   <tr>
    <th>Feature</th>
    <th>Chrome</th>
    <th>Firefox (Gecko)</th>
    <th>Internet Explorer</th>
    <th>Opera</th>
    <th>Safari</th>
   </tr>
   <tr>
    <td>Basic support (on {{domxref("Element")}})</td>
    <td>1.0</td>
    <td>{{CompatGeckoDesktop("1.9.1")}}</td>
    <td>9.0 [1]</td>
    <td>10.0</td>
    <td>4.0</td>
   </tr>
   <tr>
    <td>Support on {{domxref("Document")}} and {{domxref("DocumentFragment")}} {{experimental_inline}}</td>
    <td>29.0</td>
    <td>{{CompatGeckoDesktop("25.0")}}</td>
    <td>{{CompatNo}}</td>
    <td>16.0</td>
    <td>{{CompatNo}}</td>
   </tr>
   <tr>
    <td>Support on {{domxref("SVGElement")}}</td>
    <td>{{CompatVersionUnknown}}</td>
    <td>{{CompatVersionUnknown}}</td>
    <td>{{CompatNo}}</td>
    <td>{{CompatUnknown}}</td>
    <td>{{CompatNo}}</td>
   </tr>
  </tbody>
 </table>
</div>
<div id="compat-mobile">
 <table class="compat-table">
  <tbody>
   <tr>
    <th>Feature</th>
    <th>Android</th>
    <th>Firefox Mobile (Gecko)</th>
    <th>IE Mobile</th>
    <th>Opera Mobile</th>
    <th>Safari Mobile</th>
   </tr>
   <tr>
    <td>Basic support (on {{domxref("Element")}})</td>
    <td>{{ CompatVersionUnknown() }}</td>
    <td>{{CompatGeckoMobile("1.9.1")}}</td>
    <td>{{ CompatVersionUnknown() }}</td>
    <td>{{ CompatVersionUnknown() }}</td>
    <td>{{ CompatVersionUnknown() }}</td>
   </tr>
   <tr>
    <td>Support on {{domxref("Document")}} and {{domxref("DocumentFragment")}} {{experimental_inline}}</td>
    <td>{{CompatVersionUnknown}}</td>
    <td>{{CompatGeckoMobile("25.0")}}</td>
    <td>{{CompatNo}}</td>
    <td>16.0</td>
    <td>{{CompatNo}}</td>
   </tr>
  </tbody>
 </table>
</div>
<p>[1] Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8 supported it, but erroneously includes {{domxref("Comment")}} nodes.</p>
<h2 id="See_also">See also</h2>
<ul>
 <li>The {{domxref("ParentNode")}} and {{domxref("ChildNode")}} pure interfaces.</li>
 <li>
  <div class="syntaxbox">
   Object types implementing this pure interface: {{domxref("Document")}}, {{domxref("Element")}}, and {{domxref("DocumentFragment")}}.</div>
 </li>
</ul>