Name
HTMLCollection.namedItem( ): get an element by name â DOM Level 2 HTML
Synopsis
Node namedItem(Stringname
);
Arguments
-
name
The name of the element to be returned.
Returns
The element in the collection that has the specified value
for its id
or name
attribute, or null
if no elements in the
HTMLCollection have that name.
Description
This method finds and returns an element from the
HTMLCollection that has the specified name. If any element has an
id
attribute whose value is the
specified name, that element is returned. If no such element is
found, an element whose name
attribute has the specified value is returned. If no such element
exists, namedItem( )
returns
null
.
Note that any HTML element may be given an id
attribute, but only certain HTML
elementsâsuch as forms, form elements, images, and anchorsâmay have
a name
attribute.
In JavaScript, it is easier to treat the HTMLCollection as an
associative array and to specify name
between square brackets using array notation.
Example
var forms = document.forms; // An HTMLCollection of forms var address = forms.namedItem("address"); // Finds <form name="address"> var payment = forms["payment"] // Simpler syntax: finds <form name="payment"> var login = forms.login; // Also works: finds <form name="login">
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