How to remove a class from elements in pure JavaScript?

Question

I would like to know how to select all elements with class names "widget" and "hover" and then remove class "hover" from these elements.

I have the following JavaScript code that selects all elements with class "widget" and "hover":

var elements = document.getElementsByClassName('widget hover');
console.log(elements);

This seems to work and outputs something like this (with no errors):

[div#.widget... 

The problem is that if I try to remove the class "hover", I get an error:

var elements = document.getElementsByClassName('widget hover');
console.log(elements);
elements.classList.remove("hover");

This outputs:

[item: function]
length: 0
Uncaught TypeError: Cannot call method 'remove' of undefined 

Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?

Please note that I have it working in jQuery:

$('.widget.hover').removeClass('hover');

... but I'm looking for a solution in pure JavaScript.

Answer 1

var elems = document.querySelectorAll(".widget.hover");

[].forEach.call(elems, function(el) {
    el.classList.remove("hover");
});

---

You can patch .classList into IE9. Otherwise, you'll need to modify the .className.

var elems = document.querySelectorAll(".widget.hover");

[].forEach.call(elems, function(el) {
    el.className = el.className.replace(/\bhover\b/, "");
});

The .forEach() also needs a patch for IE8, but that's pretty common anyway.

Answer 2

Find elements:

var elements = document.getElementsByClassName('widget hover');

Since elements is a live array and reflects all dom changes you can remove all hover classes with a simple while loop:

while(elements.length > 0){
    elements[0].classList.remove('hover');
}

Answer 3

It's 2022... keep it simple and just use es6

Times have changed and now the cleanest and most readable way to do this is:

Array.from(document.querySelectorAll('.widget.hover')).forEach((el) => el.classList.remove('hover'));

If you can't support arrow functions then just convert it like this:

Array.from(document.querySelectorAll('.widget.hover')).forEach(function(el) { 
    el.classList.remove('hover');
});

Additionally if you need to support extremely old browsers then use a polyfil for the forEach and Array.from and move on with your life.

Answer 4

Elements is an array of DOM objects. You should do something like this:

for (var i = 0; i < elements.length; i++) {
   elements[i].classList.remove('hover');
}

Enumerate the elements collection and for each element inside the collection call the remove method