Question

I have an unordered list, with a couple list-items inside. Inside each of those is a link. What I want to do is find the position of the list-item when someone clicks the link inside it.

For example, if someone clicks the link inside the 3rd list-item, it gives me a value of 3.

I already have the click part, just need to figure out how to get the position of the list-item

Javascript only

Answer 1

Here’s a simple live example that does what you want (except the list does not have links)

http://jsfiddle.net/8k926/2/

In the “Result” box click on one of the list items. It will have a handler that pops up its sequence number.

The Javascript code is the following

var els = document.getElementsByTagName('li');

Array.prototype.forEach.call(els,function(el,i){
    el.addEventListener('click', function(){alert(i);}, false);
  }) ;

Although els is array-like, it does not have a forEach method. We get around that by using the Array.prototype.forEach method.

Update: Here’s a second live example that narrows things down to a specific list, as opposed to all list items.

http://jsfiddle.net/8k926/3/

Also, as a commenter points out, forEach is not universally supported, but it is used here to simplify the code.