[javascript] How to get all elements inside "div" that starts with a known text

I have a div element in an HTML document.

I would like to extract all elements inside this div with id attributes starting with a known string (e.g. "q17_").

How can I achieve this using JavaScript ?

If needed, for simplicity, I can assume that all elements inside the div are of type input or select.

This question is related to javascript html

The answer is


Option 1: Likely fastest (but not supported by some browsers if used on Document or SVGElement) :

var elements = document.getElementById('parentContainer').children;

Option 2: Likely slowest :

var elements = document.getElementById('parentContainer').getElementsByTagName('*');

Option 3: Requires change to code (wrap a form instead of a div around it) :

// Since what you're doing looks like it should be in a form...
var elements = document.forms['parentContainer'].elements;

var matches = [];

for (var i = 0; i < elements.length; i++)
    if (elements[i].value.indexOf('q17_') == 0)
        matches.push(elements[i]);

i have tested a sample and i would like to share this sample and i am sure it's quite help full. I have done all thing in body, first creating an structure there on click of button you will call a function selectallelement(); on mouse click which will pass the id of that div about which you want to know the childrens. I have given alerts here on different level so u can test where r u now in the coding .

    <body>
    <h1>javascript to count the number of children of given child</h1>

    <div id="count">
    <span>a</span>
    <span>s</span>
    <span>d</span>
    <span>ff</span>
    <div>fsds</div>
    <p>fffff</p>
    </div>
   <button type="button" onclick="selectallelement('count')">click</button>
   <p>total element no.</p>
    <p id="sho">here</p>
  <script>

  function selectallelement(divid)
  {
 alert(divid);
 var ele = document.getElementById(divid).children;
 var match = new Array();
  var i = fillArray(ele,match);
  alert(i);
   document.getElementById('sho').innerHTML = i;
  }
 function fillArray(e1,a1)
  {
 alert("we are here");
   for(var i =0;i<e1.length;i++)
{
  if(e1[i].id.indexOf('count') == 0)
    a1.push(e1[i]);
}
return i;
   }
   </script>

 </body>

  USE THIS I AM SURE U WILL GET YOUR ANSWER ...THANKS 

var $list = $('#divname input[id^="q17_"]');   // get all input controls with id q17_

// once you have $list you can do whatever you want

var ControlCnt = $list.length;
// Now loop through list of controls
$list.each( function() {

    var id = $(this).prop("id");      // get id
    var cbx = '';
    if ($(this).is(':checkbox') || $(this).is(':radio')) {
        // Need to see if this control is checked
    }
    else { 
        // Nope, not a checked control - so do something else
    }

});

With modern browsers, this is easy without jQuery:

document.getElementById('yourParentDiv').querySelectorAll('[id^="q17_"]');

The querySelectorAll takes a selector (as per CSS selectors) and uses it to search children of the 'yourParentDiv' element recursively. The selector uses ^= which means "starts with".

Note that all browsers released since June 2009 support this.


Presuming every new branch in your tree is a div, I have implemented this solution with 2 functions:

function fillArray(vector1,vector2){
    for (var i = 0; i < vector1.length; i++){
        if (vector1[i].id.indexOf('q17_') == 0)
            vector2.push(vector1[i]);
        if(vector1[i].tagName == 'DIV')
            fillArray (document.getElementById(vector1[i].id).children,vector2);
    }
}

function selectAllElementsInsideDiv(divId){ 
    var matches = new Array();
    var searchEles = document.getElementById(divId).children;
    fillArray(searchEles,matches);
    return matches;
}

Now presuming your div's id is 'myDiv', all you have to do is create an array element and set its value to the function's return:

var ElementsInsideMyDiv = new Array();
ElementsInsideMyDiv =  selectAllElementsInsideDiv('myDiv')

I have tested it and it worked for me. I hope it helps you.