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JavaScript JavaScript and the DOM (Retiring) Traversing the DOM Parent Traversal

David Palmer
David Palmer
5,453 Points
Posted by David Palmer
David Palmer
5,453 Points

I keep getting the error: "The parent was not an HTML element" with the statement "let ul = removeMe.parentNode;" Why?

The variable removeMe in the statement removeMe = document.querySelector(".remove_me"); should contain the object describing the li element with class "remove_me". I should then be able to traverse to the parent node "ul" with .parentElement property of this object. Where am I going wrong here?

app.js 
var removeMe = document.querySelector('.remove_me');
let ul = removeMe.parentElement;
var parent;
index.html 
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
        <title>Parent Traversal</title>
    </head>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css" />
    <body>
        <ul>
            <li>Hello</li>
            <li>Hi</li>
            <li class="remove_me">Good bye!</li>
            <li>Howdy</li>
        </ul>
        <script src="app.js"></script>
    </body>
</html>

2 Answers

seth aruby
seth aruby
10,111 Points
seth aruby
seth aruby
10,111 Points

Hey David, for this challenge you'll just want to select the element you want to remove; you've done that with your first line of code. Then you need to select the parent element. Then use the removeChild() method to remove the element from its parent, like so:

var removeMe = document.querySelector('.remove_me');
var parent = removeMe.parentNode;
parent.removeChild(removeMe);

Hope this helps

David Palmer
David Palmer
5,453 Points
David Palmer
David Palmer
5,453 Points

Thank you, Seth, the tutorial just wanted me to use the parent variable Makes sense now.