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JavaScript jQuery Basics (2014) Introduction to jQuery What is the DOM?

I get an undefined from console

I type in :

document.getElementsByClassName(".warning")[0]

at around 5minutes into video as per instruction but instead of what appears in video I get the message "undefined" returned o me . I am using Opera console. Can someone point out what is happening please?

2 Answers

Michael Hulet
Michael Hulet
47,913 Points

In JavaScript's default methods, it takes classes and ids without their CSS selector characters. In the case of classes, that's the period (.) before the class name. In the code you wrote, JavaScript searches for a class literally named .warning instead of just warning that you're actually looking for. The proper way to get all classes of a specific name in vanilla JavaScript looks like this:

document.getElementsByClassName("warning"); // Notice the lack of a period (.) before warning

However, jQuery takes the CSS selector to search for elements. If this was jQuery, you would write it with a period (.), like this:

$(".warning"); // Notice that a period *is* present here

Thank you for your explanation. I understand the 'why' now. Much appreciated.