HTML element is attached to a document

Question

When an element is removed from the DOM using removeChild(), the reference to the element still exist but the element is no more in the DOM.
How to know if an HTML element (or its parents) is still attached to a document ?

Answer 1

Node.prototype.contains() is the answer:

if(document.body.contains(yourElement)) {
    // Yep, it's attached.
}

Compatibility: IE5+

Answer 2

For newer browsers (no IE support), you can use Node.isConnected, which is a property on Node and returns a boolean.

Mozilla Node.isConnected

document.querySelectorAll('#myElement').isConnected;