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JavaScript JavaScript and the DOM (Retiring) Getting a Handle on the DOM Practice Selecting Elements

Pavel Rogulin
Pavel Rogulin
5,036 Points
Posted by Pavel Rogulin
Pavel Rogulin
5,036 Points

Can't solve task 1(Practice Selecting Elements)

I need help. First I tried to use getElementsByTagName(‘nav’) but it returned “Was expecting 3 links not 1”, then added class=’selected’ to all 3 <li> elements and tried to use getElementsByTagName(‘selected’) and again “Was expecting 3 links not 1”. Then I tried querySelectorAll(‘.selected’) and… Yes, it was “Was expecting 3 links not 1”. What am I doing wrong?

1 Answer

Austin Whipple
Austin Whipple
29,725 Points
Austin Whipple
Austin Whipple
29,725 Points

For this challenge question, there should be no need to modify the HTML. You'll just need to adjust how you're looking for the anchor tags within the nav element. document.getElementsByTagName('nav') will only select nav elements, no child or grandchildren of them. In this case you're looking for elements that are many branches away, so the links would never make their way into that array.

A more flexible method is document.querySelectorAll() since it allows you to use normal CSS selector rules. So you could, for instance, look for nav a. Be careful to avoid document.querySelector, however, because that selects only the first matched element. And again, no need to modify the HTML, so look for other ways to target all those elements with modifying their existing classes.

Give this video and the teachers notes a quick review and try again!

Austin Whipple
Austin Whipple
29,725 Points
Austin Whipple
Austin Whipple
29,725 Points

Oh! And check out this CSS Selectors Reference for all the ways you can use document.querySelectorAll()