The Element.getElementsByTagNameNS() method returns a live HTMLCollection of elements with the given tag name belonging to the given namespace. It is similar to Document.getElementsByTagNameNS, except that its search is restricted to descendants of the specified element.
Syntax
elements = element.getElementsByTagNameNS(namespaceURI, localName)
elementsis a liveHTMLCollectionof found elements in the order they appear in the tree.elementis the element from where the search should start. Note that only the descendants of this element are included in the search, not the node itself.namespaceURIis the namespace URI of elements to look for (seeNode.namespaceURI). For example, if you need to look for XHTML elements, use the XHTML namespace URI,http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml.localNameis either the local name of elements to look for or the special value"*", which matches all elements (seeNode.localName).
Example
// check the alignment on a number of cells in a table in an XHTML document.
var table = document.getElementById("forecast-table");
var cells = table.getElementsByTagNameNS("http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml", "td");
for (var i = 0; i < cells.length; i++) {
var axis = cells[i].getAttribute("axis");
if (axis == "year") {
// grab the data
}
}
Specifications
| Specification | Status | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| DOM The definition of 'Element.getElementsByTagNameNS()' in that specification. |
Living Standard | Changed the return value from NodeList to HTMLCollection. |
| Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Specification The definition of 'Element.getElementsByTagNameNS()' in that specification. |
Obsolete | No change from Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 Core Specification. |
| Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 Core Specification The definition of 'Element.getElementsByTagNameNS()' 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 (WebKit) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic support | 1.0[1] | (Yes) | (Yes)[2] | 5.5 | (Yes)[1] | (Yes)[1] |
| getElementsByTagName("*") | 1.0 | (Yes) | (Yes) | 6.0 | (Yes) | (Yes) |
| Feature | Android | Edge | Firefox Mobile (Gecko) | IE Phone | Opera Mobile | Safari Mobile |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic support | (Yes) | (Yes) | (Yes)[2] | (Yes) | (Yes) | (Yes) |
[1] Initially, this method was returning a NodeList; it was then changed to reflects the spec change.
[2] The behavior of element.getElementsByTagNameNS changed between Firefox 3.5 and Firefox 3.6. In Firefox 3.5 and before, this function would automatically case-fold any queries so that a search for "foo" would match "Foo" or "foo". In Firefox 3.6 and later this function is now case-sensitive so that a query for "foo" will only match "foo" and not "Foo". For more background on this, please see the comment from Henri Sivonen about the change. You can also look at the relevant part of the standard, which states which parts of the API are case-sensitive and which parts aren't.
Prior to Firefox 19, this method was returning a NodeList; it was then changed to reflects the spec change.