Javascript - Select element by id name

Question

Normally I select elements with an id via document.getElementById('idName'). But apparently you can also select them by name only 'idName'. I was not aware of this until recently. I wanted to know if this is a "bad practice" to select elements by their idName? I have already used the search engine and found nothing about select by id name. So here is my question now.

 console.log(idName)

<div id="idName">Hello World</div>

Is this possible? I thought id or class would inherently be a reference to the element and not the element itself. — DragonInTraining, Jan 13 '22 at 13:13
@DragonInTraining It is possible. You can open your dev tools and type: footer into the console. — Maik Lowrey, Jan 13 '22 at 13:15
It could happen that a variable is declared with the same name causing conflicting code. — Mark Baijens, Jan 13 '22 at 13:19
If you were coding in the 90's you would understand where it came from. lol You people missed out on document.all and documnet.layers wars. :) Those were the days. And I just dated myself..... — epascarello, Jan 13 '22 at 13:29
Also see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3434278/do-dom-tree-elements-with-ids-become-global-variables — James, Jan 13 '22 at 13:34
This is blowing my mind a little. I understand that this might not be BiP but the fact that the option exists is amazing. — DragonInTraining, Jan 13 '22 at 13:35

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 13 '22 at 13:21

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I believe this is a bad practice because you can get yourself confused and cause conflicts with your own js variables.

answered Jan 13 '22 at 13:21

César O. Araújo

66
5

I also think that it should be used with caution. – Maik Lowrey Jan 13 '22 at 13:39

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 13 '22 at 13:25

1

I can't say it's Good or bad But

you should be very careful while using . This can cause many problems So I will recommend use in Small Projects only . (it's My personal recommendation )

Suppose Your JavaScript loads First then it will throw an error and none of the code will work

For more Information

just typing in 'idName' isn’t a “short form” of document.getElementById() It’s a reference to a global variable

answered Jan 13 '22 at 13:25

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I see it the same way you do. I would have no problem using it for smaller projects. But for larger ones, it can lead to problems. – Maik Lowrey Jan 13 '22 at 13:38

Javascript - Select element by id name

2 Answers2