Node.nodeName

The Node.nodeName read-only property returns the name of the current node as a string.

The returned values for different types of nodes are:

Interface	nodeName value
Attr	The value of Attr.name
CDATASection	"#cdata-section"
Comment	"#comment"
Document	"#document"
DocumentFragment	"#document-fragment"
DocumentType	The value of DocumentType.name
Element	The value of Element.tagName
Entity	The entity name
EntityReference	The name of entity reference
Notation	The notation name
ProcessingInstruction	The value of ProcessingInstruction.target
Text	"#text"

Syntax

var str = node.nodeName;

Example

Given the following markup:

<div id="d1">hello world</div>
<input type="text" id="t"/>

and the following script:

var div1 = document.getElementById("d1");
var text_field = document.getElementById("t");

text_field.value = div1.nodeName;

In XHTML (or any other XML format), text_field's value would read "div". However, in HTML, text_field's value would read "DIV", because nodeName and tagName return in upper case on HTML elements in DOMs flagged as HTML documents. Read more details on nodeName case sensitivity in different browsers.

Note that tagName property could have been used instead, since nodeName has the same value as tagName for an element. Bear in mind, however, that nodeName will return #text for text nodes while tagName will return undefined.

Specifications

• DOM Level 2 Core: Node.nodeName
• DOM Level 3 Core: Node.nodeName
• HTML 5: APIs in HTML documents