HTML DOM closest() Method

The closest() method of the element interface is used to traverse the element and its parents in the HTML Document Tree until it finds the first node that matches the selector string that is provided.

Syntax:

targetElement.closest( selectors )

Parameters: This method accepts a single parameter as mentioned above and described below:

selectors: It is a string that specifies the HTML selectors that will be used to find the node.

Return Value: This method returns the closest element if the matching ancestor is found, otherwise it returns null if no such element is found.

Example: The following example shows the usage of the closest() method by searching the given elements in the HTML DOM structure.

HTML

<!DOCTYPE html>

<html>
 
<head>

    <title>GeeksforGeeks</title>

</head>
 
<body>

    <div>

        <span>

            Hello! it is a span

            <p id="p">

                It is paragraph

            </p>

        </span>

    </div>
 
    <script>

        // Get the paragraph element

        let element = document.getElementById('p');
 
        // Return the closest paragraph element

        // which is the element itself

        let close1 = element.closest("p");

        console.log(close1)
 
        // Return the closest span element

        let close2 = element.closest("span");

        console.log(close2)
 
        // Return the closest div element

        let close3 = element.closest("div");

        console.log(close3)

    </script>

</body>
 
</html>

Output: The element which is the closest to the selector is returned.

Supported Browsers: The browsers supported by DOM closest() method are listed below:

Google Chrome 41 and above
Edge 15 and above
Firefox 35 and above
Apple Safari 6 and above
Opera 28 and above
Internet Explorer not supported

Article Tags :

HTML

Web Technologies

HTML-DOM

Web technologies