Javascript GetElementById

  • DOM
  • HTML
  • JAVASCRIPT
  • CODING TIPS

Published on 2018-08-10

The javascript Document method getElementById(String) is a fast way of returning an HTML Element Object representing the element that matches the specified id string parameter.

Quick Usage

var element = getElementById("html-tag-id-attribute");Copy code to the clipboard

Method Details

  • Syntax

    var element = getElementById(id);Copy code to the clipboard
  • Paramenter

    The id parameter is a string with the html element id attribute to be searched.

  • Return Value

    HTML Element Object or NULL.

  • Support

    All browsers.

  • More References

Performance Comparison

Consider the following HTML setup. The goal of this test is to select the section's first div element

n t
n t
n t
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  • DOM getElementById( ) – 386.44FASTEST

    var element = document.getElementById("id-selector-0");
  • DOM getElementsByClassName( ) – 141.60

    var element = document.getElementsByClassName("class-selector-0")[0];
  • DOM querySelector( ) by id – 140.65

    var element = document.querySelector('#id-selector-0');
  • DOM getElementsByTagName( ) – 139.91

    var element = document.getElementsByTagName("div")[0];
  • jQuery( ) id selector – 24.52

    var element = $("#id-selector-0").get(0);
  • jQuery( ) class selector – 8.94

    var element = $("#id-selector-0").get(0);
  • DOM querySelector( ) by class name – 2.77

    var element = document.querySelector('.class-selector-0');
  • DOM querySelectorAll( ) by tag name – 2.10

    var element = document.querySelectorAll('div')[0];
  • DOM querySelectorAll( ) by class name – 1.93

    var element = document.querySelectorAll('.general')[0];
  • DOM querySelector( ) by tag name – 1.46

    var element = document.querySelector('div:nth-child(0)');
  • DOM querySelector( ) by composed tag – 1.40

    var element = document.querySelector('section > div:nth-child(0)');

Tested in Chrome 68.0.3440, Mac OS X 10.13.6. Check this comparison on JSPERF

Rafael Caferati

Full Stack Web Developer, UI/UX Javascript Specialist.

<[{ Part-time developer – full-time geek }]>

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