Returns the <body> or <frameset> node of the current document, or null if no such element exists.
Syntax
var objRef = document.body; document.body = objRef;
Example
// in HTML: <body id="oldBodyElement"></body>
alert(document.body.id); // "oldBodyElement"
var aNewBodyElement = document.createElement("body");
aNewBodyElement.id = "newBodyElement";
document.body = aNewBodyElement;
alert(document.body.id); // "newBodyElement"
Notes
document.body is the element that contains the content for the document. In documents with <body> contents, returns the <body> element, and in frameset documents, this returns the outermost <frameset> element.
Though body is settable, setting a new body on a document will effectively remove all the current children of the existing <body> element.
Specification
| Specification | Status | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| HTML Living Standard The definition of 'Document.body' in that specification. |
Living Standard | |
| HTML 5.1 The definition of 'Document.body' in that specification. |
Recommendation | |
| HTML5 The definition of 'Document.body' in that specification. |
Recommendation | |
| Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 HTML Specification The definition of 'Document.body' in that specification. |
Obsolete | |
| Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 Specification The definition of 'Document.body' in that specification. |
Obsolete | Initial definition. |
Browser compatibility
We're converting our compatibility data into a machine-readable JSON format. This compatibility table still uses the old format, because we haven't yet converted the data it contains. Find out how you can help!
| Feature | Chrome | Edge | Firefox (Gecko) | Internet Explorer | Opera | Safari |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic support | 1 | (Yes) | 2[1] | 6 | 9.6 (possibly earlier) | 4 (possibly earlier) |
| Feature | Android | Edge | Firefox Mobile (Gecko) | IE Mobile | Opera Mobile | Safari Mobile |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic support | (Yes) | (Yes) | (Yes)[1] | (Yes) | (Yes) | 5 (probably earlier) |
[1] The body property was implemented on the HTMLDocument interface in Firefox for a long time, hence document.body would not return the <body> element if the document's Content-Type was not set to text/html or application/xhtml+xml (or if it came from DOMParser.parseFromString without the text/html type being used). This has been fixed in Firefox 60.