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element.attributes

The Element.attributes property returns a live collection of all attribute nodes registered to the specified node. It is a NamedNodeMap, not an Array, so it has no Array methods and the Attr nodes' indexes may differ among browsers. To be more specific, attributes is a key/value pair of strings that represents any information regarding that attribute.

Syntax

var attr = element.attributes;

Example

Basic examples

// Get the first <p> element in the document
var para = document.getElementsByTagName("p")[0];
var atts = para.attributes;

Enumerating elements attributes

Numerical indexing is useful for going through all of an element's attributes.
The following example runs through the attribute nodes for the element in the document with id "paragraph", and prints each attribute's value.

<!DOCTYPE html>

<html>

 <head>
  <title>Attributes example</title>
  <script type="text/javascript">
   function listAttributes() {
     var paragraph = document.getElementById("paragraph");
     var result = document.getElementById("result");

     // First, let's verify that the paragraph has some attributes    
     if (paragraph.hasAttributes()) {
       var attrs = paragraph.attributes;
       var output = "";
       for(var i = attrs.length - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
         output += attrs[i].name + "->" + attrs[i].value;
       }
       result.value = output;
     } else {
       result.value = "No attributes to show";
     }
   }
  </script>
 </head>

<body>
 <p id="paragraph" style="color: green;">Sample Paragraph</p>
 <form action="">
  <p>
    <input type="button" value="Show first attribute name and value"
      onclick="listAttributes();">
    <input id="result" type="text" value="">
  </p>
 </form>
</body>
</html>

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
DOM The definition of 'Element.attributes' in that specification.	Living Standard	From Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Specification, moved from `Node` to `Element`
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Specification The definition of 'Element.attributes' in that specification.	Recommendation	No change from Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 Core Specification
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 Core Specification The definition of 'Element.attributes' in that specification.	Recommendation	No change from Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 Specification
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 Specification The definition of 'Element.attributes' in that specification.	Recommendation	Initial definition.

Browser compatibility

Feature	Chrome	Firefox (Gecko)	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari
Basic support	(Yes)	(Yes) [1]	6.0 [2]	(Yes)	(Yes)

Feature	Android	Firefox Mobile (Gecko)	IE Mobile	Opera Mobile	Safari Mobile
Basic support	(Yes)	(Yes) [1]	(Yes)	(Yes)	(Yes)

[1] Before Firefox 22, this attribute was implemented in the Node interface (inherited by Element). It has been moved to this interface to conform to the specification and the usage of other browsers.

[2] Internet Explorer 5.5 returns a map containing the values rather than the attribute objects.