Name
HTMLCollection.namedItem( ) — get an element by name
Availability
DOM Level 1 HTML
Synopsis
Node namedItem(String name);Arguments
-
name The name of the element to be returned.
Returns
An element with the specified name, 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 elements -- such as forms, form
elements, images, and anchors -- may 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">