JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, Fourth Edition

Name

HTMLDocument.getElementsByName( ) — find elements with the specified name attribute

Availability

DOM Level 1 HTML

Synopsis

Node[] getElementsByName(String elementName);

Arguments

elementName

The desired value for the name attribute.

Returns

An array (really a NodeList) of elements that have a name attribute of the specified value. If no such elements are found, the returned NodeList is empty and has a length of 0.

Description

This method searches an HTML document tree for Element nodes that have a name attribute of the specified value and returns a NodeList (which you can treat as an array) containing all matching elements. If there are no matching elements, a NodeList with length 0 is returned.

Do not confuse this method with the Document.getElementById( ) method, which finds a single Element based on the unique value of an id attribute, or with the Document.getElementsByTagName( ) method, which returns a NodeList of elements with the specified tag name.

See Also

Document.getElementById( ), Document.getElementsByTagName( )