Home/ Questions/Q 550573
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-05-13T11:18:09+00:00

What is a way to uniquely identify all DOM nodes in an HTML document.

  • 0

What is a way to uniquely identify all DOM nodes in an HTML document. To illustrate what I mean, here is a (fictional) example:

  • Script X randomly selects a DOM node from document.html.
  • Script X needs to tell script Y which DOM node it has chosen.
  • How does script X uniquely identify the DOM node it has chosen so that script Y knows exactly which node it is in document.html?

I’m really interested in how to uniquely identify the DOM node so that the script Y can identify it and manipulate it. Preferably, it should work with text nodes as well. I was thinking of XPath maybe, but I’m not sure how to generate a unique XPath to any given node.

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    You should be able to determine a unique XPath by working backwards from the node to the root node, and tracking the node you’re on, and which sibling it is, such that you get something like:

    /a[1]/b[2]/c[101]/text()

    so that’s the 101st C node under the second B node, etc. As such, that’s a unique path and can be copied around with reference to the original document

    • 0