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JavaScript JavaScript and the DOM (Retiring) Getting a Handle on the DOM Selecting Multiple Elements

Posted by Hanwen Zhang
Hanwen Zhang
20,084 Points

For loop question in querySelector, help please

The for loop cycles over list items and applies a color to each item using the values stored in the colors array. For example, the first color in the array ( #C2272D) is applied to the first list item, the second color (#F8931F) to the second list item, and so on. Complete the code by setting the variable listItems to refer to a collection. The collection should contain all list items in the <ul> element with the ID of rainbow.

js/app.js 
var listItems = document.querySelectorAll('#rainbow');
var colors = ["#C2272D", "#F8931F", "#FFFF01", "#009245", "#0193D9", "#0C04ED", "#612F90"];

for(var i = 0; i < colors.length; i ++) {
  listItems[i].style.color = colors[i];    
}
index.html 
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Rainbow!</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <ul id="rainbow">
      <li>This should be red</li>
      <li>This should be orange</li>
      <li>This should be yellow</li>
      <li>This should be green</li>
      <li>This should be blue</li>
      <li>This should be indigo</li>
      <li>This should be violet</li>
    </ul>
    <script src="js/app.js"></script>
  </body>
</html>

4 Answers

Peter Vann
Peter Vann
36,425 Points

Hi Hanwen!

You could also use a descendent selector with querySelectorAll like this (it passed this way for me):

let listItems = document.querySelectorAll('#rainbow li'); // still targets the list items collection
const colors = ["#C2272D", "#F8931F", "#FFFF01", "#009245", "#0193D9", "#0C04ED", "#612F90"];

for(let i = 0; i < colors.length; i ++) {
  listItems[i].style.color = colors[i];    
}

And although var works, it is now customary and considered better practice to declare i with let and the other variables with let and const (but var will certainly work also).

More info:

https://www.w3schools.com/css/css_combinators.asp

https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/var-let-and-const-whats-the-difference/

I hope that helps.

Stay safe and happy coding!

Jassim Alhatem
Jassim Alhatem
20,883 Points

I actually never knew you could do that, sick!

Hanwen Zhang
Hanwen Zhang
20,084 Points

Thank you Peter

Jassim Alhatem
Jassim Alhatem
20,883 Points
Jassim Alhatem
Jassim Alhatem
20,883 Points

Hi, Hanwen Zhang,

The challenge is basically asking you to select the list items. What you're doing is selecting all elements that have the id 'rainbow'. What you should do instead is:

  • Select the id 'rainbow'.
  • Select the children. .children Which is an HTML collection, that contains all of the child elements of the node upon which it was called: document.querySelector("#rainbow"). That query on its own will return the ul element. But adding the .children property does what I mentioned.

The program handles the rest. Here's the solution.

var listItems = document.querySelector("#rainbow").children;
var colors = ["#C2272D", "#F8931F", "#FFFF01", "#009245", "#0193D9", "#0C04ED", "#612F90"];

for(var i = 0; i < colors.length; i ++) {
  listItems[i].style.color = colors[i];    
}
Hanwen Zhang
Hanwen Zhang
20,084 Points

Thank you Jassim

Peter Vann
Peter Vann
36,425 Points
Peter Vann
Peter Vann
36,425 Points

Ah Jassim, my old nemesis... We meet again!?! Bw-ah-ha-ha-ha!?! LOL

J/K, of course...

Actually, yea I came to find the querySelector and querySelectorAll can be very useful for pinpoint targeting of elements using combinators.

With getElementByID or getElementsByClassName you are limited to targeting the parents and then you have to do a lot of daisy-chaining of child/sibling selector functions, which often gets confusing and convoluted.

I hope your weekend is going well!

Stay safe and happy coding!

Jassim Alhatem
Jassim Alhatem
20,883 Points

lol. you too bro xD and thanks for the info.

Sergio Andrés Herrera Velásquez
PLUS
Sergio Andrés Herrera Velásquez
Courses Plus Student 23,765 Points
Sergio Andrés Herrera Velásquez
Sergio Andrés Herrera Velásquez
Courses Plus Student 23,765 Points

Thank you, this discussion was really helpful, I was really stuck on this.