Tech Stuff - DOM HTMLAnchorElement
W3C HTML Reference. Part of the HTML Interface
HTMLAnchorElement
The Anchor HTML element may be defined in HTML using <a id="one"></a> and then referenced using a method such as getElementById, or created dynamically using the createElement method of a document. An HTMLAnchorElement is identified when it returns nodeType = 1 (ELEMENT_NODE) and the value "a" when a node's nodeName attribute is inspected.
Usage
// create HTMLAnchorElement
anchor = document.createElement{"a");
// discover HTMLAnchorElement
if(somenode.nodeType == 1){
if(somenode.nodeName == "a"){
// now use HTMLAnchorElement methods and properties
href = somenode.href;
}
}
Related Information
createElement, createTextNode and getElementById methods
Methods and Attributes
W3C HTMLAnchorElement Reference. Methods and Attributes reference. Also inherits the HTMLElement and Node properties.
Examples
// get reference to existing anchor element
// defined as <a id="our-home" href="http://www.example.com">home</a>
anchor = document.getElementById("our-home");
hs = anchor.href; // hs = "www.example.com"
vs = anchor.childNodes[0].data; // vs = "home"
// create the above anchor dynamically
anchor = document.createElement("a");
anchor.href = "www.example.com";
anchor.id = "our-home";
hometext = document.createTextNode("home");
anchor.appendChild(hometext);
// stick it onto an existing element with id="links"
obj = document.getElementById("links");
obj.appendChild(anchor);
Notes:
The first fragment shows obtaining a reference to an anchor element defined statically in the HTML page, the second creates the same anchor using javascript DOM API methods and attributes and appends it to an existing object in the page with an id="links". This last fragment also illustrates how the 'clickable'/visible text is created for an anchor with the textnode.
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