HTML Tag Elements

All of the HTML tag elements have the following useful attributes:

• element.id - the identifier for element.
• element.className - the HTML class for element.
• element.innerHTML - the HTML text inside element.
• element.style - the style object for element. The style object has an attributes corresponding to each of the CSS attributes. Setting one of these attributes immediately changes the visual appearence of element.

The first two attributes are often specified directly in HTML as in the following example:

      <div id="theDiv" class="theClass">
        …
      </div>
    

Other attributes specified directly in HTML are also accessible as element attributes in JavaScript. Usually the attribute names are the same, but a few, such as class, are modified to avoid JavaScript keywords.

The HTML tag elements have no frequently used methods other than those shared by all elements.

• getElementsByTagName(tagName) - returns an array of HTML elements whose tag name is tagName. The entire descendent hierarchy is searched.
• appendChild(element) - appends element at the end of the childNodes array.
• removeChild(child) - removes child from the childNodes array.
• replaceChild(newChild, oldChild) - replaces oldChild in the childNodes array by newChild.