Web/API/Element/attributes

The Element.attributes property returns a live collection of all attribute nodes registered to the specified node. It is a NamedNodeMap, not an Array, so it has no Array methods and the Attr nodes' indexes may differ among browsers. To be more specific, attributes is a key/value pair of strings that represents any information regarding that attribute.

Syntax

var attr = element.attributes;

Example

Basic examples

// Get the first <p> element in the document
var para = document.getElementsByTagName("p")[0];
var atts = para.attributes;

Enumerating elements attributes

Numerical indexing is useful for going through all of an element's attributes. The following example runs through the attribute nodes for the element in the document with id "paragraph", and prints each attribute's value.

<!DOCTYPE html>

<html>

 <head>
  <title>Attributes example</title>
  <script type="text/javascript">
   function listAttributes() {
     var paragraph = document.getElementById("paragraph");
     var result = document.getElementById("result");

     // First, let's verify that the paragraph has some attributes    
     if (paragraph.hasAttributes()) {
       var attrs = paragraph.attributes;
       var output = "";
       for(var i = attrs.length - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
         output += attrs[i].name + "->" + attrs[i].value;
       }
       result.value = output;
     } else {
       result.value = "No attributes to show";
     }
   }
  </script>
 </head>

<body>
 <p id="paragraph" style="color: green;">Sample Paragraph</p>
 <form action="">
  <p>
    <input type="button" value="Show first attribute name and value"
      onclick="listAttributes();">
    <input id="result" type="text" value="">
  </p>
 </form>
</body>
</html>

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
DOMThe definition of 'Element.attributes' in that specification.	Living Standard	From Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Specification, moved from `Node` to `Element`
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core SpecificationThe definition of 'Element.attributes' in that specification.	Obsolete	No change from Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 Core Specification
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 Core SpecificationThe definition of 'Element.attributes' in that specification.	Obsolete	No change from Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 Specification
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 SpecificationThe definition of 'Element.attributes' in that specification.	Obsolete	Initial definition.

Browser compatibility

Update compatibility data on GitHub

	Desktop						Mobile
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari	Android webview	Chrome for Android	Firefox for Android	Opera for Android	Safari on iOS	Samsung Internet
`attributes`	Chrome Full support 26	Edge Full support 12	Firefox Full support 22	IE Full support 5.5	Opera Full support 8	Safari Full support 6	WebView Android Full support ≤37	Chrome Android Full support 26	Firefox Android Full support 22	Opera Android Full support 10.1	Safari iOS Full support 6	Samsung Internet Android Full support 1.5

Legend

Full support: Full support