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JavaScript

Idan shami
Idan shami
13,251 Points

when should I use selectors and when should I need to traverse in the DOM?

I'm new to the DOM after I watched the basic tutorials I implemented the basics to my website, but all the time I felt committed to traverse the DOM and not to select EVERY element, but sometimes I felt that I need to select my elements one by one instead and it's not possible to access it by traversing.

so my question is: when do I need to select one by one and when do I need to traverse it? thanks a lot.

1 Answer

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,007 Points

The choice is usually based on your point of reference. If you have none to start with, a selector function would generally be needed. But in a delegated event handler, you might use traversal based on the event target. You could also still use a selector if you needed to access a specific element unrelated to the one generating the event.

When the choice isn't immediately clear, try thinking of how you implement it both ways, and what the results would be. If both are possible and produce the same results, one will likely yield more compact code.