HTML DOM nodeType Property

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Overview

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# HTML DOM nodeType Property

Element Object

## Example

Get the node type of the body element:

document.body.nodeType;

The result will be:

1
Try it yourself »

## Definition and Usage

The nodeType property returns the node type, as a number, of the specified node.

If the node is an element node, the nodeType property will return 1.

If the node is an attribute node, the nodeType property will return 2.

## Browser Support

The nodeType property is supported in all major browsers.

## Syntax

node.nodeType

## Technical Details

Return Value: | A String, representing the node type of the node
DOM Version | Core Level 1 Node Object

## Node Types

Documents, elements, attributes, and other aspects of an HTML or XML document has different node types.

There are 12 different node types, which may have children of various node types:

Node type | Description | Children
--- | --- | ---
1 | Element | Represents an element | Element, Text, Comment, ProcessingInstruction, CDATASection, EntityReference
2 | Attr | Represents an attribute | Text, EntityReference
3 | Text | Represents textual content in an element or attribute | None
4 | CDATASection | Represents a CDATA section in a document (text that will NOT be parsed by a parser) | None
5 | EntityReference | Represents an entity reference | Element, ProcessingInstruction, Comment, Text, CDATASection, EntityReference
6 | Entity | Represents an entity | Element, ProcessingInstruction, Comment, Text, CDATASection, EntityReference
7 | ProcessingInstruction | Represents a processing instruction | None
8 | Comment | Represents a comment | None
9 | Document | Represents the entire document (the root-node of the DOM tree) | Element, ProcessingInstruction, Comment, DocumentType
10 | DocumentType | Provides an interface to the entities defined for the document | None
11 | DocumentFragment | Represents a "lightweight" Document object, which can hold a portion of a document | Element, ProcessingInstruction, Comment, Text, CDATASection, EntityReference
12 | Notation | Represents a notation declared in the DTD | None

## Node Types - Return Values

The return value of the nodeName and the nodeValue properties for each node type:

Node type | nodeName returns | nodeValue returns
--- | --- | ---
1 | Element | element name | null
2 | Attr | attribute name | attribute value
3 | Text | #text | content of node
4 | CDATASection | #cdata-section | content of node
5 | EntityReference | entity reference name | null
6 | Entity | entity name | null
7 | ProcessingInstruction | target | content of node
8 | Comment | #comment | comment text
9 | Document | #document | null
10 | DocumentType | doctype name | null
11 | DocumentFragment | #document fragment | null
12 | Notation | notation name | null

## NodeTypes - Named Constants

NodeType | Named Constant
--- | ---
1 | ELEMENT_NODE
2 | ATTRIBUTE_NODE
3 | TEXT_NODE
4 | CDATA_SECTION_NODE
5 | ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE
6 | ENTITY_NODE
7 | PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE
8 | COMMENT_NODE
9 | DOCUMENT_NODE
10 | DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE
11 | DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE
12 | NOTATION_NODE

Element Object

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