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

Posted by talpaschal
talpaschal
5,616 Points

Trying to addClassName to the previous Sibling Element and I can't get it to work.

Can someone please help me get through this problem??

app.js 
var list = document.getElementsByTagName('ul')[0];

list.addEventListener('click', function(e) {
  for (let i = 0; i < list.length; i += 1){
    if (e.target.tagName == 'BUTTON') {
        let li = event.target.parentNode;
      let prevLi = li.previousElementSibling;
      let ul = li.parentNode;
      prevLi.className = 'highlight';
   }
  }
});
index.html 
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
        <title>JavaScript and the DOM</title>
    </head>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css" />
    <body>
        <section>
            <h1>Making a Webpage Interactive</h1>
            <p>Things to Learn</p>
            <ul>
                <li><p>Element Selection</p><button>Highlight</button></li>
                <li><p>Events</p><button>Highlight</button></li>
                <li><p>Event Listening</p><button>Highlight</button></li>
                <li><p>DOM Traversal</p><button>Highlight</button></li>
            </ul>
        </section>
        <script src="app.js"></script>
    </body>
</html>

1 Answer

Jorge Flores
Jorge Flores
2,207 Points
Jorge Flores
Jorge Flores
2,207 Points
  • So the problem sets it up for you so that the target is a button. No need to make changes there.
  • The question refers to the immediately previous element, the paragraph. The most direct route would be to use the previousElementSibling method as they are in the same hierarchical level, they are siblings. If you like you could also go to the parent element and then the first child element of that parent as well.
  • Both should return the paragraph in question which you can then add the class in various ways, I used the setAttribute but there are others.
var list = document.getElementsByTagName('ul')[0];

list.addEventListener('click', function(e) {
  if (e.target.tagName == 'BUTTON') {
    e.target.previousElementSibling.setAttribute('class', 'highlight')
  }
});

Hope that helps.

talpaschal
talpaschal
5,616 Points

Thank you I was making harder than it actually was.