I'm passing a var el into a function. el contains previously grabbed element (using getElementById) and when I console.log el in the function I get the following:

The problem comes in when I try to grab an element inside of the el using:

el.getElementsByName('fname');

I get the error:

Uncaught TypeError: Object #<HTMLDivElement> has no method 'getElementsByName'

I'm passing a var el into a function. el contains previously grabbed element (using getElementById) and when I console.log el in the function I get the following:

The problem comes in when I try to grab an element inside of the el using:

el.getElementsByName('fname');

I get the error:

Uncaught TypeError: Object #<HTMLDivElement> has no method 'getElementsByName'

• javascript
• dom
• children

• I think that means getElementsByName is not a method of that object. Is el from a library like jQuery? I think you want document.getElementsByName without knowing what el is. – Leeish Commented Feb 12, 2013 at 22:23
• is there any reason not use jQuery? – Senad Meškin Commented Feb 12, 2013 at 22:23

1 Answer 1

The getElementsByName() API is at the document object level. It's not an HTMLElement method.

You could use querySelectorAll() instead:

var fnames = el.querySelectorAll('[name=fname]');

It's not supported in older browsers however.