HTMLTableRowElement: cells property

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.

The cells read-only property of the HTMLTableRowElement interface returns a live HTMLCollection containing the cells in the row. The HTMLCollection is live and is automatically updated when cells are added or removed.

Value

Examples

This example uses HTMLTableRowElement.cells to display the number of cell in a row.

HTML

html
<table>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>C1</th>
      <th>C2</th>
      <th>C3</th>
      <th>C4</th>
      <th>C5</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>Cell 1</td>
      <td>Cell 2</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

<button id="add">Add a cell</button>
<button id="remove">Remove last cell</button>
<div>This first row has <output>2</output> cell(s).</div>

JavaScript

js
// Obtain relevant interface elements
const bodySection = document.querySelectorAll("tbody")[0];
const row = bodySection.rows[0]; // Select the first row of the body section
const cells = row.cells; // The collection is live, therefore always up-to-date
const cellNumberDisplay = document.querySelectorAll("output")[0];

const addButton = document.getElementById("add");
const removeButton = document.getElementById("remove");

function updateCellNumber() {
  cellNumberDisplay.textContent = cells.length;
}

addButton.addEventListener("click", () => {
  // Add a new cell at the end of the first row
  const newCell = row.insertCell();
  newCell.textContent = `Cell ${cells.length}`;

  // Update the row counter
  updateCellNumber();
});

removeButton.addEventListener("click", () => {
  // Delete the row from the body
  row.deleteCell(-1);

  // Update the row counter
  updateCellNumber();
});

Result

Specifications

Specification
HTML
# dom-tr-cells

Browser compatibility

Report problems with this compatibility data on GitHub
desktopmobile
Chrome
Edge
Firefox
Opera
Safari
Chrome Android
Firefox for Android
Opera Android
Safari on iOS
Samsung Internet
WebView Android
WebView on iOS
cells

Legend

Tip: you can click/tap on a cell for more information.

Full support
Full support

See also