DOM - Node Object Attribute - firstChild

The attribute firstChild specifies the first child of a node.

Syntax

Following is the syntax for the usage of the firstChild attribute.

nodeObject.firstChild

Example

node.xml contents are as below −

<?xml version = "1.0"?>
<Company>
   <Employee category = "Technical">
      <FirstName>Tanmay</FirstName>
      <LastName>Patil</LastName>
      <ContactNo>1234567890</ContactNo>
      <Email>tanmaypatil@xyz.com</Email>
   </Employee>
   
   <Employee category = "Non-Technical">
      <FirstName>Taniya</FirstName>
      <LastName>Mishra</LastName>
      <ContactNo>1234667898</ContactNo>
      <Email>taniyamishra@xyz.com</Email>
   </Employee>
   
   <Employee category = "Management">
      <FirstName>Tanisha</FirstName>
      <LastName>Sharma</LastName>
      <ContactNo>1234562350</ContactNo>
      <Email>tanishasharma@xyz.com</Email>
   </Employee>
</Company>

Following example demonstrates the usage of the firstChild attribute −

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
   <body>
      <script>
         if (window.XMLHttpRequest) {
            xmlhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
         } else {
            xmlhttp = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
         }
         xmlhttp.open("GET","/dom/node.xml",false);
         xmlhttp.send();
         xmlDoc = xmlhttp.responseXML;

         function get_firstChild(p) {
            a = p.firstChild;
            while (a.nodeType!=1) {
               a = a.nextSibling;
            }
            return a;
         }

         x = get_firstChild(xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("Employee")[0]);
         document.write("First child is : ");
         document.write(x.nodeName);
      </script>
   </body>
</html>

Execution

Save this file as nodeattribute_firstchild.htm on the server path (this file and node.xml should be on the same path in your server). We will get the output as shown below −

First child is : FirstName
dom_node_object.htm
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