Question

Why does .parent of an item in .getElementsByTagName return undefined? I am trying to apply a class to the parent of the with href equal to document.URL.

<div id="JSE_vertical_nav">
  <div class="jse_link_row">
    <a href="../SitePages/Home.aspx">HOME</a>
  </div>
  <div class="jse_link_row">
    <a href="#">ABOUT</a>
  </div>
  <div class="jse_link_row">
     <a href="#">NEWS</a>
  </div>
</div>

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
  var jse_page_url = document.URL;

  var jse_links_in_nav = document.getElementById('JSE_vertical_nav').getElementsByTagName('a');
  for (var i=0; i < jse_links_in_nav.length; i++) {
    if (jse_links_in_nav[i] == jse_page_url) {
      //why does this alert undefined?
      alert(jse_links_in_nav[i].parent);
    }
  }
</script> 

Answer 1

parentNode is the property you’re looking for 🙂