What is the unique identifier for a DOM element/node

Question

I am traversing a HTML document using javascript DOM. I want make a list (an array actually) of all nodes/elements and their values. I found a script for traversing DOM, bu

Answer 1

As programmer born and brought up in the world of C and C++, my first answer to this kind of question would have been "store their addresses in the array!". But after a couple years of messing around with the web way of things, I can give the right answer:

In javascript, you can directly store the references to the objects in the array. And no, xpath is not a good idea for this; using references is simpler and better. So a direct answer to your question is: there is no unique identifier for a DOM element/node except itself.

In javascript, all objects are passed around by reference. So here's a sample code for how to do it:

var theArray = [];
var theNodeToTraverse = document.getElementById('domelementtosearch');

traverseAndStore(theNodeToTraverse);

function traverseAndStore( node )
{
    if( node==null) return;
    theArray[ theArray.length ] = node;
    for( i=0; i<node.childNodes.length; i++ )
        traverseAndStore( node.childNodes[i] );
}

Answer 2

You can get something similar to xpath with something like this. It traverses the dom upwards from the input element through the parentNode property.

https://gist.github.com/sebjwallace/3c0a6f7493ce23134516

It will output a string like this.

"#document/HTML/BODY/DIV"

var getElementPath = function(el){
  var path = el.nodeName;
  var parent = el.parentNode;
  while(parent){
    path = parent.nodeName + '/' + path;
    parent = parent.parentNode;
  }
  return path;
}