HTML DOM links Collection
Last Updated : 09 Jun, 2023
The DOM links collection is used to return the collection of all <a> and <area> elements with the "href" attribute in the HTML document. The elements in the collection are sorted as they appear in the sourcecode.
Syntax:
document.links
Properties: It contains a single property length which is used to return the number of <a> and <area> elements in the collection.
Methods: The DOM links collection contains three methods which are listed below:
- [index]: It is used to return the <a> and <area> element of the specified index. The index value starts with 0. The NULL value is returned if the index value is out of range.
- item(index): It is used to return the <a> and <area> element of selected index. The index value starts with 0. The NULL value is returned if the index value is out of range. This method performs similarly to the above method.
- namedItem(id): It is used to return the <a> and <area> element from the collection which matches the specified id. NULL is returned if the id does not exist.
Return Value: An HTMLCollection Object, representing all <a> elements and/or <area> elements in the document. The elements in the collection are sorted as they appear in the source code
The below programs illustrate the use of the documents.links property in HTML:
Example 1: Using the length property to count the number of link elements in the collection.
HTML <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <title> DOM document.links() Property </title> <!-- script to count links --> <script> function countLinks() { let collection = document.links.length; document.querySelector(".count").innerHTML = collection; } </script> </head> <body> <h1>GeeksforGeeks</h1> <h2>Articles:</h2> <ul> <!-- list of links --> <li> <a id="js" href= "https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/javascript-tutorial/"> Javascript-Tutorial </a> </li> <li> <a id="python" href= "https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/python-programming-language/"> Python Programming Language </a> </li> <li> <a id="cpp" href= "https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/c-plus-plus/"> C++ Programming Language </a> </li> <li> <a id="html" href= "https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/html-tutorials/"> HTML Tutorials </a> </li> </ul> <!-- button to count number of links --> <button onclick="countLinks()"> Count links </button> <br> <br> <span>Total links: </span> <span class="count"></span> </body> </html> Output:
Example 2: HTML code to find all links in the document and return their IDs.
HTML <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <title> DOM document.links() Property </title> <script> /* function to find IDs */ function findLinkIDs() { let final = ''; let collection = document.links; // Run a for loop upto the number of // links in the collection for (let i = 0; i < collection.length; i++) { // Add each link id to a list final += `<li> ${collection[i].id} </li>`; } // Replace the HTML of the ID div document.querySelector(".ids").innerHTML = final; } </script> </head> <body> <h1>GeeksforGeeks</h1> <h2>Articles:</h2> <ul> <!-- list of links --> <li> <a id="js" href= "https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/javascript-tutorial/"> Javascript-Tutorial </a> </li> <li> <a id="python" href= "https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/python-programming-language/"> Python Programming Language </a> </li> <li> <a id="cpp" href= "https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/c-plus-plus/"> C++ Programming Language </a> </li> <li> <a id="html" href= "https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/html-tutorials/"> HTML Tutorials </a> </li> </ul> <!-- button to find id --> <button onclick="findLinkIDs()"> Find link IDs </button> <p>The IDs of all the links are: </p> <div class="ids"></div> </body> </html> Output:
Example 3: Using the id property to find by link ID and display its href attribute
html <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <title> DOM document.links() Property </title> <script> function returnLinkByID() { let collection = document.links.namedItem("js"); // Get the href attribute let link = collection.href; document.querySelector(".name").innerHTML = link; } </script> </head> <body> <h1>GeeksforGeeks</h1> <h2>Articles:</h2> <ul> <!-- collection of links --> <li> <a id="js" href= "https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/javascript-tutorial/"> Javascript-Tutorial </a> </li> <li> <a id="python" href= "https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/python-programming-language/"> Python Programming Language </a> </li> <li> <a id="cpp" href= "https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/c-plus-plus/"> C++ Programming Language </a> </li> <li> <a id="html" href= "https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/html-tutorials/"> HTML Tutorials </a> </li> </ul> <button onclick="returnLinkByID()"> Find by link ID </button> <p> The href attribute in the link with id of 'js' is: </p> <div class="name"></div> </body> </html> Output:
Supported Browsers: The browser supported by DOM links collection method are listed below:
- Chrome 1 and above
- Edge 12 and above
- Internet Explorer 4 and above
- Firefox 1 and above
- Opera 12.1 and above
- Safari 1 and above