---
id: element-properties
title: Element attributes and properties
---
import Admonition from "../components/Admonition"
import Accordion from "../components/Accordion"
import InternalLink from "../components/InternalLink"
import MDN from "../components/MDNBadge"
### 1. tagName
`Element.tagName : string`
`.tagName` is a read-only property on any element, which returns the tag name in uppercase form. This is useful to identify type of a element.
Ex. For a `` element, tagName is `"DIV"`.
```js
ele = document.querySelector("img");
ele.tagName // "IMG"
```
:::note Text nodes don't have `tagName`
Text nodes are not element, so they don't have any tagName.
To identify the type of node, use `.nodeType` - which returns `3` (same as `Node.TEXT_NODE`) for text nodes.
:::
## Children
:::note Types of Children
All elements will *generally* have 2 types of children - 1. element and 2. text node.
You can think of elements as other tags and text node as the text within a tag.
```jsx
This is // <- 1. text node
// <- 2. element
some text // 2.1. contains text node
```
If you recall, *Element* extends from *Node* - so all elements are nodes. That means, every child is technically a node.
This is important because some properties return **only child elements**, whereas others return **all child nodes** (both element and text node). For ex, `ele.childNodes` returns all child nodes, but `ele.children` returns only child elements.
**Always use the one which is more suitable for your case**. Remember, even if you haven't added any "text" between a tag, it can still have **invisible text nodes** due to spaces and newline characters.
```jsx
container.childNodes // [text, div, text]
// extra text nodes contain newline and space
```
Read more about [other types of nodes](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Node/nodeType) and how [whitespace works in html](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Document_Object_Model/Whitespace).
:::
### 2. .children
`Element.children: HTMLCollection`
This read-only property returns a live `HTMLCollection` containing all the **child elements** of the node. If there are no child elements, it returns empty HTMLCollection.
This property is available on `Document`, `Element`, and `DocumentFragment`, but not on text node.
`HTMLCollection` can be consumed easily by converting it to an array, using `Array.from()` or `[...ele.children]`. HTMLCollection is also a iterable and has a `.length` property.
Here, the HTMLCollection is **live** - meaning if new child elements are added, they will automatically appear in this collection.
```jsx
Some text
some element
const children = parent.children;
children // HTMLCollection [span]
// 1. For-loop using .length
for (let i = 0; i < children.length; i++) {
console.log(children[i].tagName);
}
// 2. Convert to array
[...children].forEach(ele => {
// do something
})
```
### 2. .childNodes
`Element.childNodes: NodeList`
This read-only property returns a live `NodeList` containing all the **child nodes** of the current element, including text nodes. If there are no child elements, it returns a empty NodeList.
This property is available on all types of `Node` - like Element, text node, etc.
`NodeList` can be converted to an array easily, using `Array.from()` or `[...ele.children]`. NodeList is also a iterable and has a `.length` property.
Here, the NodeList is **live**.
```jsx
Some text
some element
and more text
const childNodes = parent.childNodes;
childNodes // NodeList [text, span, text]
[...childNodes].forEach(node => {
// do something
})
```