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Syntax

getAttribute(attributeName)

Parameters

attributeName: The name of the attribute whose value you want to get.

Return value

A string containing the value of attributeName if the attribute exists; otherwise null.

Description

Casing

Processing instruction arguments are case-sensitive.

Decoded character references in attribute values

HTML character references in an attribute's source markup (for example, <, &, or <) are decoded by the HTML parser when the document is parsed, so getAttribute() returns the decoded value, not the source.

For example:

const pi = document.createProcessingInstruction(
  "start",
  'data-payload="&lt;b&gt;hi&lt;/b&gt;"',
);

pi.getAttribute("data-payload");
// <b>hi</b>

Examples

Basic usage

const pi = document.createProcessingInstruction("start", 'name="placeholder"');

console.log(pi.getAttribute("name"));
// Logs:
// "placeholder"

Specifications

Specification
DOM # dom-processinginstruction-getattribute

Browser compatibility

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This page was last modified on Aug 13, 2026 by MDN contributors.

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ProcessingInstruction: getAttribute() method

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