{{APIRef("DOM")}}
Returns a nodelist collection with a given {{domxref("element.name","name")}} in the (X)HTML document.
Syntax
elements = document.getElementsByName(name)
elements
is a live {{domxref("NodeList")}} Collectionname
is the value of thename
attribute of the element.
Example
<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> ... </head> <body> <form name="up"><input type="text"></form> <div name="down"><input type="text"></div> <script> var up_forms = document.getElementsByName("up"); console.log(up_forms[0].tagName); // returns "FORM" </script> </body> </html>
Notes
The name
attribute is only applicable to (X)HTML documents. The method returns a live {{domxref("NodeList")}} Collection that contains all elements with a given value for the name attribute, such as {{htmlelement("meta")}} or {{htmlelement("object")}} or even if name
is placed on elements which do not support a name attribute at all.
The getElementsByName method works differently in different browsers. In IE & Opera, getElementsByName() method will also return elements that have an id attribute with the specified value. so you should be careful not to use the same string as both a name and an ID.
Specifications
Specifications
Specification | Status | Comment |
---|---|---|
{{SpecName('HTML WHATWG', '#dom-document-getelementsbyname', "Document.getElementsByName()")}} | {{ Spec2('HTML WHATWG') }} | |
{{SpecName("DOM2 HTML", "html.html#ID-71555259", "Document.getElementsByName()")}} | {{Spec2("DOM2 HTML")}} | Initial definition |
See also
- {{domxref("document.getElementById()")}} to return a reference to an element by its ID
- {{domxref("document.querySelector()")}} for selectors via queries like
'div.myclass'