Loop through a collection of DOM elements

It is easy to think of a collection of DOM elements as a regular JavaScript array. This is a gotcha that many beginners fall into (including myself). NodeLists don’t share all of the Array ’s prototype methods, but there are a heap of ways to achieve the desired result. Let’s go through the list of possible methods and hacks. No frameworks or libraries today - it’s pure js day fellaz!

Aha! You’ll know this method mainly from the Array’s prototype but actually some browsers contain this function in the prototype of NodeList too. However, because of the lack of sufficient browser support I wouldn’t consider it the way to go. This list would have been incomplete without it though.

Google Chrome - yeep

Firefox >= 50

IE - hazard a guess!

Edge - nope

Opera - yeep

Safari (stable version) - nope

Safari (Technology Preview) - yeep

Android - nope

Android (Chrome) - yeep

Firefox Mobile - yeep

iOS - nope

const articles = document . querySelectorAll ( 'article' ); articles . forEach ( a => { a . style . fontFamily = 'Comic Sans MS' ; }); // Chrome - 'Comic Sans MS' everywhere dudes! Sweet! // Firefox - TypeError: articles.forEach is not a function

If forEach() doesn’t exist in NodeList 's prototype, you can always ask your good friend Array to lend it to you — your browser definitely has this (if it’s not Internet Explorer 8 or below).

const articles = document . querySelectorAll ( 'article' ); []. forEach . call ( articles , a => { a . style . fontFamily = 'Comic Sans MS' ; }); // or Array . prototype . forEach . call ( articles , a => { a . style . fontFamily = 'Comic Sans MS' ; });

If you don’t like call() or apply() you can convert the DOM elements to an array first and then use forEach() as you intend to.

const articles = []. slice . call ( document . querySelectorAll ( 'article' )); // or const articles = [... document . querySelectorAll ( 'article' )]; // or const articles = Array . from ( document . querySelectorAll ( 'article' )); articles . forEach ( a => { a . style . fontFamily = 'Comic Sans MS' ; });

You can even go absolutely crazy and add Array’s forEach() to NodeList.prototype .

if ( typeof NodeList . prototype . forEach === "undefined" ) { NodeList . prototype . forEach = Array . prototype . forEach ; } if ( typeof HTMLCollection . prototype . forEach === "undefined" ) { HTMLCollection . prototype . forEach = Array . prototype . forEach ; } const articles = document . querySelectorAll ( 'article' ); articles . forEach ( a => { a . style . fontFamily = 'Comic Sans MS' ; });

All three of the snippets above will work just fine. They do feel a bit hacky though and I’m not the only one who thinks like this. Bear in mind that the spread operator presented above [...] and Array.from() are parts of the modern spec. To use them without worry equip yourself with Babel.

for loop #

The good ol’ for loop is a good candidate to do this job. It’s a very well supported and reliable method. No hacks, no babels!

const articles = document . querySelectorAll ( 'article' ); for ( let i = 0 ; i < articles . length ; i ++ ) { articles [ i ]. style . fontFamily = 'Comic Sans MS' ; }

The ECMAScript 2015 spec brought us a new tool to traverse through iterable objects. As we saw in the previous example, NodeList is definitely an iterable collection so we can easily add a for..of loop to our collection. Babel may be helpful in this instance as it is a part of the spec that is a bit more modern than your clients requirements.

const articles = document . querySelectorAll ( 'article' ); for ( let a of articles ) { a . style . fontFamily = 'Comic Sans MS' ; }

Hopefully this list of methods (and hacks) helped you out. Use whatever feels right depending on your use case. My preferable method from the list above is the for...of loop as almost every single line of my code goes through a compiler that will translate it to a syntax that even old school browsers can handle. If I need to quickly smash an example out I use a for loop.

Let me know your thoughts. What is your preferred method to traverse through DOM elements? If you liked this article the share buttons are right below. Bye :*

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