Element.localName

The Element.localName read-only property returns the local part of the qualified name of an element.

In previous DOM specifications this API was defined within the Node interface.

Syntax

name = element.localName

Return value

A DOMString representing the local part of the element's qualified name.

Example

(Must be served with XML content type, such as text/xml or application/xhtml+xml.)

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
      xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
<head>
  <script type="application/javascript"><![CDATA[
  function test() {
    var text = document.getElementById('text');
    var circle = document.getElementById('circle');
    text.value = "<svg:circle> has:\n" +
                 "localName = '" + circle.localName + "'\n" +
                 "namespaceURI = '" + circle.namespaceURI + "'";
  }
  ]]></script>
</head>
<body onload="test()">
  <svg:svg version="1.1"
    width="100px" height="100px"
    viewBox="0 0 100 100">
    <svg:circle cx="50" cy="50" r="30" style="fill:#aaa" id="circle"/>
  </svg:svg>
  <textarea id="text" rows="4" cols="55"/>
</body>
</html>

Notes

The local name of a node is that part of the node's qualified name that comes after the colon. Qualified names are typically used in XML as part of the namespace(s) of the particular XML documents. For example, in the qualified name ecomm:partners, partners is the local name and ecomm is the prefix:

<ecomm:business id="soda_shop" type="brick_n_mortar" xmlns:ecomm="http://example.com/ecomm">
  <ecomm:partners>
    <ecomm:partner id="1001">Tony's Syrup Warehouse
    </ecomm:partner>
  </ecomm:partner>
</ecomm:business>

Note: In Gecko 1.9.2 and earlier, the property returns the upper-cased version of the local name for HTML elements in HTML DOMs (as opposed to XHTML elements in XML DOMs). In later versions, in compliance with HTML5, the property returns in the case of the internal DOM storage, which is lower case for both HTML elements in HTML DOMs and XHTML elements in XML DOMs. The tagName property continues to return in the upper case for HTML elements in HTML DOMs.

Specifications

Specification Status Comment
DOM
The definition of 'Element.localName' in that specification.		 Living Standard Initial definition

Browser compatibility

Feature Chrome Firefox (Gecko) Internet Explorer Opera Safari
Basic support 46.0[1] 48.0 (48.0)[1] ? (Yes) ?
Feature Android Firefox Mobile (Gecko) IE Mobile Opera Mobile Safari Mobile
Basic support ? 48.0 (48.0)[1] ? ? ?

[1] This API was previously available on the Node API.

See also

Document Tags and Contributors

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 Contributors to this page: DomenicDenicola, Sebastianz, fscholz
 Last updated by: DomenicDenicola,