javascript check if child node is element or text node

Question

i have problem with childNodes as below :

 <ol>
    <li>Coffee</li>
    <li>Tea</li>
    <li>Coca Cola</li>
 </ol>
 //childNodes.length = 7

but

<ol><li> Coffee </li><li> Tea </li><li> Coca Cola </li></ol>
//childNodes.length = 3

It seems each \n or textnode is considered a child ,how can i remove these from childNodes?

Answer 1

You can check if a given child node is a text node or not using the nodeType. Text nodes will have the nodeType as 3. We can either use the number or the constant Node.TEXT_NODE for checking.

window.onload = function() {
  var el = document.getElementsByTagName('ol')[0].childNodes; // using [0] as there is only one ol in the demo
  console.log('Print with text nodes');
  for (var i = 0; i < el.length; i++) { // will output all nodes with "undefined" for text nodes
    console.log(el[i].innerHTML);
  }
  console.log('Print without text nodes');
  for (var i = 0; i < el.length; i++) { // will output only non text nodes.
    if (el[i].nodeType != Node.TEXT_NODE) // or if (el[i].nodeType != 3)
      console.log(el[i].innerHTML);
  }
}

<ol>
  <li>Coffee</li>
  <li>Tea</li>
  <li>Coca Cola</li>
</ol>

Answer 2

Text nodes can also be checked for using nodeName

node.nodeName === '#text'