Javascript DOM HTML Element firstElementChild Property

Introduction

The firstElementChild property returns the first child element of the specified element.

Get the HTML content of the first child element of an <ul> element: 

var x = document.getElementById("myList").firstElementChild.innerHTML;

Click the button to get the HTML content of the list's first child element.

View in separate window 

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>

<p>Example list:</p>

<ul id="myList">
  <li>CSS</li>
  <li>HTML</li>
</ul>//  w  w w  .j  ava 2s.c om
<button onclick="myFunction()">Test</button>

<p id="demo"></p>

<script>
function myFunction() {
  var list = document.getElementById("myList").firstElementChild.innerHTML;
  document.getElementById("demo").innerHTML = list;
}
</script>

</body>
</html>

The firstChild returns the first child node as an element node, a text node or a comment node.

The firstElementChild returns the first child node as an element node not including text and comment nodes.

This property is read-only.

Use the children property to return any child element of a specified element.

children[0] will produce the same result as firstElementChild.

To return the last child element of a specified element, use the lastElementChild property.

The firstElementChild property returns a Node object representing the first child element of an element, or null if there are no child elements.




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