Node.contains()

The Node.contains() method returns a Boolean value indicating whether a node is a descendant of a given node or not.

Syntax

node.contains( otherNode ) 

Example

This function checks to see if an element is in the page's body. As contains is inclusive and determining if the body contains itself isn't the intention of isInPage this case explicitly returns false.

function isInPage(node) {
  return (node === document.body) ? false : document.body.contains(node);
}

Specifications

Browser compatibility

[1] Internet Explorer only supports contains() for elements.

[2] Safari 2.x implemented contains() incorrectly.

See also

• Node.compareDocumentPosition
• Node.hasChildNodes