Javascript cloneNode is not a function [duplicate]

Question

I have few spans:

<span name="5">a</span>
<span name="5">b</span>
<span name="5">c</span>
<span name="5">d</span>

I use getElementsByName to get the span collection:

var spans = document.getElementsByName("5");

What I did next is clone the spans and put it into another span container:

var clonedSpan = spans.cloneNode(true);
var container = document.createElement("span");
container.appendChild(clonedSpan);

But the exception happens saying spans.cloneNode is not a function.

Any idea why?

Answer 1

cloneNode is a method of an HTMLElement, not of a NodeList.

You have to call it on a single element:

var clonedSpan = spans[0].cloneNode(true);