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The nodeName, nodeValue, and nodeType properties contain information about nodes.

Node Properties

In the HTML DOM, each node is an object.

Objects have methods and properties that can be accessed and manipulated by JavaScript.

Three important node properties are:

nodeName
nodeValue
nodeType

The nodeName Property

The nodeName property specifies the name of a node.

nodeName is read-only
nodeName of an element node is the same as the tag name
nodeName of an attribute node is the attribute name
nodeName of a text node is always #text
nodeName of the document node is always #document

Note: nodeName always contains the uppercase tag name of an HTML element.

The nodeValue Property

The nodeValue property specifies the value of a node.

nodeValue for element nodes is undefined
nodeValue for text nodes is the text itself
nodeValue for attribute nodes is the attribute value

Get the Value of an Element

The following example retrieves the text node value of the <p id="intro"> tag:

Example

<html>
<body>

<p id="intro">Hello World!</p>

<script type="text/javascript">
x=document.getElementById("intro");
document.write(x.firstChild.nodeValue);
</script>

</body>
</html>

Try it yourself »

The nodeType Property

The nodeType property returns the type of node. nodeType is read only.

The most important node types are:

Element type	NodeType
Element	1
Attribute	2
Text	3
Comment	8
Document	9