Text: wholeText property

{{ apiref("DOM") }}

The read-only wholeText property of the {{domxref("Text")}} interface returns the full text of all {{domxref("Text")}} nodes logically adjacent to the node. The text is concatenated in document order. This allows specifying any text node and obtaining all adjacent text as a single string.

[!NOTE] This is similar to calling {{domxref("Node.normalize()")}} followed by reading the text value, but without modifying the tree.

Value

A string with the concatenated text.

Example

Suppose you have the following simple paragraph within your webpage:

<p>
  Through-hiking is great!
  <strong>No insipid election coverage!</strong> However,
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absentee_ballot">casting a ballot</a>
  is tricky.
</p>

You decide you don't like the middle sentence, so you remove it:

const paragraph = document.querySelector("p"); // Reads the paragraph
paragraph.removeChild(paragraph.childNodes[1]); // Delete the strong element

Now you end up with "Through-hiking is great! However, casting a ballot is tricky.", with two nodes before the hyperlink:

1. A {{domxref("Text")}} containing the string "Through-hiking is great!"
2. A second Text node containing the string " However, "

To get those two nodes at once, you would call paragraph.childNodes[0].wholeText:

console.log(`'${paragraph.childNodes[0].wholeText}'`); // 'Through-hiking is great!   However, '

Specifications

{{Specifications}}

Browser compatibility

{{Compat}}

See also

• The {{domxref("Text")}} interface it belongs to.