The read-only firstChild
property of the Node
interface returns the node's first child in the tree, or null
if the node has no children.
If the node is a Document
, this property returns the first node in the list of its direct children.
Note: This property returns any type of node that is the first child of this one. It may be a Text
or a Comment
node. If you want to get the first Element
that is a child of another element, consider using Element.firstElementChild
.
A Node
, or null
if there are none.
This example demonstrates the use of firstChild
and how whitespace nodes might interfere with using this property.
<p id="para-01">
<span>First span</span>
</p>
<script>
const p01 = document.getElementById("para-01");
console.log(p01.firstChild.nodeName);
</script>
In the above, the console will show '#text' because a text node is inserted to maintain the whitespace between the end of the opening <p>
and <span>
tags. Any whitespace will create a #text
node, from a single space to multiple spaces, returns, tabs, and so on.
Another #text
node is inserted between the closing </span>
and </p>
tags.
If this whitespace is removed from the source, the #text nodes are not inserted and the span element becomes the paragraph's first child.
<p id="para-01"><span>First span</span></p>
<script>
const p01 = document.getElementById("para-01");
console.log(p01.firstChild.nodeName);
</script>
Now the console will show 'SPAN'.
To avoid the issue with node.firstChild
returning #text
or #comment
nodes, Element.firstElementChild
can be used to return only the first element node.