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JavaScript Interactive Web Pages with JavaScript Traversing and Manipulating the DOM with JavaScript Perform: Appending and Removing Elements

Posted by sibal gesekki
sibal gesekki
3,484 Points

why not parentElement instead of parentNode?

this guy uses the parentNode property to get the parent of an element node. the parent will always be an element in our case (a li element) so idk why he decided to use parentNode instead of parentElement.

2 Answers

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
229,744 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
229,744 Points

The parent is not always an element, for example the parent of the html element.

The reason you might want to use parentElement is if you are specifically looking for a parent which IS an element. You would likely test the result for null and do something different in that case.

James Bradd
James Bradd
4,597 Points

That is an excellent point!

Gavin Broekema
seal-mask
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Gavin Broekema
Full Stack JavaScript Techdegree Student 22,443 Points
Gavin Broekema
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Gavin Broekema
Full Stack JavaScript Techdegree Student 22,443 Points

But in this case the parent is in fact an element. So why not just use parentElement for readability purposes? Not trying to challenge you lol, just curious.

James Bradd
James Bradd
4,597 Points
James Bradd
James Bradd
4,597 Points

So I had to look this up as I had no clue. Here is a stack overflow question that goes over it pretty well http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8685739/difference-between-dom-parentnode-and-parentelement . Parent element would work fine, as long as what you are looking for is an element. parentNode will work in all cases.

Question is why even create parentElement?

sibal gesekki
sibal gesekki
3,484 Points

i read that too. i was just wondering if there was a reason why i would use parentElement. my conclusion: parentElement is useless and parentNode is the one i should use

James Bradd
James Bradd
4,597 Points

I am inclined to agree, the only difference is that to a reader, parentElement is more intuitive. That said this is all inside the DOM so most readers probably understand what a node is. I personally can't see a reason for using the parentElement property.