Document: createTreeWalker() method

The Document.createTreeWalker() creator method returns a newly created TreeWalker object.

Syntax

createTreeWalker(root)
createTreeWalker(root, whatToShow)
createTreeWalker(root, whatToShow, filter)

Parameters

root

A Node representing the root of the TreeWalker object, which is the initial value of TreeWalker.currentNode.

whatToShow Optional

An unsigned long representing a bitmask created by combining the constant properties of NodeFilter. It is a convenient way of filtering for certain types of node. It defaults to 0xFFFFFFFF, representing the NodeFilter.SHOW_ALL constant.

Constant	Numerical value	Description
NodeFilter.SHOW_ALL	0xFFFFFFFF	Shows all nodes.
NodeFilter.SHOW_ATTRIBUTE	0x2	Shows Attr nodes.
NodeFilter.SHOW_CDATA_SECTION	0x8	Shows CDATASection nodes.
NodeFilter.SHOW_COMMENT	0x80	Shows Comment nodes.
NodeFilter.SHOW_DOCUMENT	0x100	Shows Document nodes.
NodeFilter.SHOW_DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT	0x400	Shows DocumentFragment nodes.
NodeFilter.SHOW_DOCUMENT_TYPE	0x200	Shows DocumentType nodes.
NodeFilter.SHOW_ELEMENT	0x1	Shows Element nodes.
NodeFilter.SHOW_ENTITY	0x20	Legacy, no longer effective.
NodeFilter.SHOW_ENTITY_REFERENCE	0x10	Legacy, no longer effective.
NodeFilter.SHOW_NOTATION	0x800	Legacy, no longer effective.
NodeFilter.SHOW_PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION	0x40	Shows ProcessingInstruction nodes.
NodeFilter.SHOW_TEXT	0x4	Shows Text nodes.

Note: The NodeFilter.SHOW_ATTRIBUTE constant is only effective when the root is an attribute node. Since the parent of any Attr node is always null, TreeWalker.nextNode() and TreeWalker.previousNode() will never return an Attr node. To traverse Attr nodes, use Element.attributes instead.

filter Optional

A callback function or an object with an acceptNode() method, which returns NodeFilter.FILTER_ACCEPT, NodeFilter.FILTER_REJECT, or NodeFilter.FILTER_SKIP. The function or method will be called for each node in the subtree based at root which is accepted as included by the whatToShow flag to determine whether or not to include it in the list of iterable nodes:

• If the return value is NodeFilter.FILTER_ACCEPT, this node is included.
• If the return value is NodeFilter.FILTER_REJECT, any node in the subtree based at this node is not included.
• If the return value is NodeFilter.FILTER_SKIP, this node is not included.

Return value

A new TreeWalker object.

Examples

Using whatToShow

This example uses whatToShow to transform text contents into upper case. Note that the text nodes of the descendants of the #root element are also traversed despite of the fact that they are not child nodes of the #root element.

HTML

<div id="root">
  This is a text node.
  <span>And this is a <code>span</code> element.</span>
</div>

CSS

span {
  background-color: aqua;
}

JavaScript

const treeWalker = document.createTreeWalker(
  document.querySelector("#root"),
  NodeFilter.SHOW_TEXT,
);

while (treeWalker.nextNode()) {
  const node = treeWalker.currentNode;
  node.data = node.data.toUpperCase();
}

Result

Using filter

This example uses filter to escape text contents. For any text node, its content will be escaped using encodeURI() if it is a descendant of an .escape element but not of any .no-escape element.

HTML

<div>
  <div>
    This is not escaped. <span class="escape">But this is escaped.</span>
  </div>
  <div class="escape">This is escaped.</div>
  <div class="no-escape">This is not escaped.</div>
</div>
<hr />
<div class="escape">
  <div>
    This is escaped. <span class="no-escape">But this is not escaped.</span>
  </div>
  <div class="no-escape">This is not escaped.</div>
</div>
<hr />
<div class="no-escape">
  <div>This is not escaped.</div>
  <div class="escape">This is not escaped.</div>
</div>

CSS

div {
  margin: 0.25em 0;
  padding: 0.25em;
}
span {
  display: inline-block;
}

.escape {
  border: dashed;
}
.no-escape {
  border: solid;
}

JavaScript

const treeWalker = document.createTreeWalker(
  document.body,
  NodeFilter.SHOW_ELEMENT,
  (node) =>
    node.classList.contains("no-escape")
      ? NodeFilter.FILTER_REJECT
      : node.closest(".escape")
        ? NodeFilter.FILTER_ACCEPT
        : NodeFilter.FILTER_SKIP,
);

while (treeWalker.nextNode()) {
  for (const node of treeWalker.currentNode.childNodes) {
    if (node.nodeType === Node.TEXT_NODE && /\S/.test(node.data)) {
      // Exclude whitespace-only text nodes
      node.data = encodeURI(node.data.replace(/\s+/g, " "));
    }
  }
}

Result

Specifications

• DOM

See also

• TreeWalker: Related interface