Node: nodeType property

Value

An integer which specifies the type of the node. Possible values are:

Node.ELEMENT_NODE (1)

An Element node like <p> or <div>.

Node.ATTRIBUTE_NODE (2)

An Attribute of an Element.

Node.TEXT_NODE (3)

The actual Text inside an Element or Attr.

Node.CDATA_SECTION_NODE (4)

A CDATASection, such as <!CDATA[[ ]]>

Node.PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE (7)

A ProcessingInstruction of an XML document, such as <?xml-stylesheet ?>.

Node.COMMENT_NODE (8)

A Comment node, such as <!-- -->.

Node.DOCUMENT_NODE (9)

A Document node.

Node.DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE (10)

A DocumentType node, such as <!doctype html>.

Node.DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE (11)

A DocumentFragment node.

The following constants have been deprecated and are not in use anymore: Node.ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE (5), Node.ENTITY_NODE (6), and Node.NOTATION_NODE (12).

Examples

Different types of nodes

document.nodeType === Node.DOCUMENT_NODE; // true
document.doctype.nodeType === Node.DOCUMENT_TYPE_NODE; // true

document.createDocumentFragment().nodeType === Node.DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE; // true

const p = document.createElement("p");
p.textContent = "Once upon a time";

p.nodeType === Node.ELEMENT_NODE; // true
p.firstChild.nodeType === Node.TEXT_NODE; // true

Comments

This example checks if the first node inside the document element is a comment, and displays a message if not.

const node = document.documentElement.firstChild;
if (node.nodeType !== Node.COMMENT_NODE) {
  console.warn("You should comment your code!");
}

Specifications

Browser compatibility