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Document: getElementsByName() method

files/en-us/web/api/document/getelementsbyname/index.md

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{{APIRef("DOM")}}

The getElementsByName() method of the {{domxref("Document")}} object returns a {{domxref("NodeList")}} Collection of elements with a given name attribute in the document.

Syntax

js-nolint
getElementsByName(name)

Parameters

  • name
    • : The value of the name attribute of the element(s) we are looking for.

Return value

A live {{domxref("NodeList")}} collection, meaning it automatically updates as new elements with the same name are added to, or removed from, the document.

Examples

html
<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <title>Example: using document.getElementsByName</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <input type="hidden" name="up" />
    <input type="hidden" name="down" />
  </body>
</html>
js
const upNames = document.getElementsByName("up");
console.log(upNames[0].tagName); // displays "INPUT"

Notes

The name attribute can only be applied in (X)HTML documents.

The returned {{domxref("NodeList")}} Collection contains all elements with the given name, such as {{htmlelement("meta")}}, {{htmlelement("object")}}, and even elements which do not support the name attribute at all.

Specifications

{{Specifications}}

Browser compatibility

{{Compat}}

See also

  • {{domxref("document.getElementById()")}} to return a reference to an element by its unique id
  • {{domxref("document.getElementsByTagName()")}} to return references to elements with the same tag name
  • {{domxref("document.querySelector()")}} to return references to elements via CSS selectors like 'div.myclass'