Document: querySelectorAll() method

The {{domxref("Document")}} method querySelectorAll() returns a static (not live) {{domxref("NodeList")}} representing a list of the document's elements that match the specified group of selectors.

Syntax

js-nolint

querySelectorAll(selectors)

Parameters

selectors
- : A string containing one or more selectors to match. This string must be a valid CSS selector string; if it isn't, a SyntaxError exception is thrown.
  
  Note that the HTML specification does not require attribute values to be valid CSS identifiers. If a class or id attribute value is not a valid CSS identifier, then you must escape it before using it in a selector, either by calling {{domxref("CSS.escape_static", "CSS.escape()")}} on the value, or using one of the techniques described in Escaping characters. See Escaping attribute values for an example.

Return value

A non-live {{domxref("NodeList")}} containing one {{domxref("Element")}} object for each element that matches at least one of the specified selectors or an empty {{domxref("NodeList")}} in case of no matches. The elements are in document order — that is, parents before children, earlier siblings before later siblings.

[!NOTE] If the specified selectors include a CSS pseudo-element, the returned list is always empty.

Exceptions

SyntaxError {{domxref("DOMException")}}
- : Thrown if the syntax of the specified selectors string is not valid.

Examples

Obtaining a list of matches

To obtain a {{domxref("NodeList")}} of all of the {{HTMLElement("p")}} elements in the document:

const matches = document.querySelectorAll("p");

This example returns a list of all {{HTMLElement("div")}} elements within the document with a class of either note or alert:

const matches = document.querySelectorAll("div.note, div.alert");

Here, we get a list of <p> elements whose immediate parent element is a {{HTMLElement("div")}} with the class highlighted and which are located inside a container whose ID is test.

const container = document.querySelector("#test");
const matches = container.querySelectorAll("div.highlighted > p");

This example uses an attribute selector to return a list of the {{HTMLElement("iframe")}} elements in the document that contain an attribute named data-src:

const matches = document.querySelectorAll("iframe[data-src]");

Here, an attribute selector is used to return a list of the list items contained within a list whose ID is user-list which have a data-active attribute whose value is 1:

const container = document.querySelector("#user-list");
const matches = container.querySelectorAll("li[data-active='1']");

Accessing the matches

Once the {{domxref("NodeList")}} of matching elements is returned, you can examine it just like any array. If the array is empty (that is, its length property is 0), then no matches were found.

Otherwise, you can use standard array notation to access the contents of the list. You can use any common looping statement, such as:

const highlightedItems = userList.querySelectorAll(".highlighted");

highlightedItems.forEach((userItem) => {
  deleteUser(userItem);
});

Escaping attribute values

This example shows that if an HTML document contains an id which is not a valid CSS identifier, then we must escape the attribute value before using it in querySelectorAll().

HTML

In the following code, a {{htmlelement("div")}} element has an id of "this?element", which is not a valid CSS identifier, because the "?" character is not allowed in CSS identifiers.

We also have three buttons, and a {{htmlelement("pre")}} element for logging errors.

html

<div id="this?element"></div>

<button id="no-escape">No escape</button>
<button id="css-escape">CSS.escape()</button>
<button id="manual-escape">Manual escape</button>

<pre id="log"></pre>

CSS

css

div {
  background-color: blue;
  margin: 1rem 0;
  height: 100px;
  width: 200px;
}

JavaScript

All three buttons, when clicked, try to select the <div>, and then set its background color to a random value.

The first button uses the "this?element" value directly.
The second button escapes the value using {{domxref("CSS.escape_static", "CSS.escape()")}}.
The third button explicitly escapes the "?" character using a backslash. Note that we must also escape the backslash itself, using another backslash, like: "\\?".

const log = document.querySelector("#log");

function random(number) {
  return Math.floor(Math.random() * number);
}

function setBackgroundColor(id) {
  log.textContent = "";

  try {
    const elements = document.querySelectorAll(`#${id}`);
    const randomColor = `rgb(${random(255)} ${random(255)} ${random(255)})`;
    elements[0].style.backgroundColor = randomColor;
  } catch (e) {
    log.textContent = e;
  }
}

document.querySelector("#no-escape").addEventListener("click", () => {
  setBackgroundColor("this?element");
});

document.querySelector("#css-escape").addEventListener("click", () => {
  setBackgroundColor(CSS.escape("this?element"));
});

document.querySelector("#manual-escape").addEventListener("click", () => {
  setBackgroundColor("this\\?element");
});

Result

Clicking the first button gives an error, while the second and third buttons work properly.