The right way to check if an html element exist

Question

What is the proper way to check if an html element exist in a webpage.

I do like this:

    if (document.getElementById('container') !== null) {doThis()}

How good is this? What are other ways?

Well that is not checking an element.... that is checking if getElementById is defined.... I assume you meant to do `if (document.getElementById("id") !== null)` That is basically on of the ways to find the element exists or not.... Any way you do it, you need to reference the element.... — epascarello, Sep 21 '18 at 18:18
The answer is, that is basically how you do it.... You can doa truthy check, but it is basically the same thing... — epascarello, Sep 21 '18 at 18:22
it should work directly work with - `if (document.getElementById('id'))` — mmk, Sep 21 '18 at 18:22
That is good to, but I just curious if there are other ways? — user18984, Sep 21 '18 at 18:24

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 21 '18 at 18:31

0

Answered

I was looking for

document.body.contains(element))

answered Sep 21 '18 at 18:31

user18984

So guessing your question is not exactly what you were asking if this is your answer.... – epascarello Sep 21 '18 at 18:33
I just wanted to find another way. – user18984 Sep 21 '18 at 18:34
But that code is still requiring you to look up the element which if you used getElementById would be still null.... so you would be doing `contains(null)` which is not any better than `if(elem)`. Now how it would work with contains if you had an element reference that was not added to the DOM yet and than would not be added. `var div = document.createElement("div"); console.log(document.body.contains(div));` – epascarello Sep 21 '18 at 18:44

1 Answers1