Check if element has child node by id name

Question

I apologize if this is an easy question! I'm pretty new to javascript.

I'm trying to check if a div has a specific child element (I'll name it 'child2'). I know about .hasChildNodes() but as far as I know it only lets you know if child nodes exist. I tried .contains like so:

if (parentDiv.contains(child2) == false) {

but even if the parentDiv does contain child2, it still returns false. It seems like such a simple thing to do and I've been trying to search around but I haven't had any luck in pure js. Thanks!

Pointy · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-09 20:34:43Z

36

You can use querySelector():

var hasChild = parentDiv.querySelector("#child2") != null;

The querySelector() method lets you search the subtree beneath the starting element using the given CSS selector string. If the element is found, its DOM node is returned.

answered Mar 9, 2016 at 20:34

Pointy

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11 Comments

Kody R. Over a year ago

So "child2" is added dynamically on load if data was received from the server. If not, it's not added. When I do something inside the website, I want it to add to "child2" and create another "child2." Even if it does exist aftering loading the data, it keeps telling me it doesn't exist

Pointy Over a year ago

@KodyR. When you look in the DOM inspector from your browser's developer console, you can see the element but the above code does not work? I think that would be extremely strange. How sure are you that parentDiv refers to the correct node?

Kody R. Over a year ago

I just looked and it isn't there in the code but it's definitely on my screen. Very strange

Asons Over a year ago

How do you check the code? ... With "view source" or developer tools (Chrome) or ..?

Pointy Over a year ago

@KodyR. when you click "Inspect Element" on your red box, it should highlight the clicked element in the view of the DOM.

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