Node.previousSibling

The Node.previousSibling read-only property returns the node immediately preceding the specified one in its parent's childNodes list, or null if the specified node is the first in that list.

The following examples demonstrate how previousSibling works with and without text nodes mixed in with elements.

In this example, we have a series of img elements directly adjacent to each other, with no whitespace between them.

<img id="b0"><img id="b1"><img id="b2">

document.getElementById("b1").previousSibling;    // <img id="b0">
document.getElementById("b2").previousSibling.id; // "b1"

In this example, there are whitespace text nodes (line breaks) between the img elements.

<img id="b0">
<img id="b1">
<img id="b2">

document.getElementById("b1").previousSibling;                 // #text
document.getElementById("b1").previousSibling.previousSibling; // <img id="b0">
document.getElementById("b2").previousSibling.previousSibling; // <img id="b1">
document.getElementById("b2").previousSibling;                 // #text
document.getElementById("b2").previousSibling.id;              // undefined

Gecko-based browsers insert text nodes into a document to represent whitespace in the source markup. Therefore a node obtained, for example, using Node.firstChild or Node.previousSibling may refer to a whitespace text node rather than the actual element the author intended to get. You can use previousElementSibling to get the previous element node (skipping text nodes and any other non-element nodes).

See Whitespace in the DOM and W3C DOM 3 FAQ: Why are some Text nodes empty? for more information.

To navigate the opposite way through the child nodes list use Node.nextSibling.

• Node.nextSibling