How to get element by innerText

Question

How to get tag in html page, if I know what text tag contains. E.g.:

<a ...>SearchingText</a>

Answer 1

I've just needed a way to get the element that contains a specific text and this is what I came up with.

Use document.getElementsByInnerText() to get multiple elements (multiple elements might have the same exact text), and use document.getElementByInnerText() to get just one element (first match).

Also, you can localize the search by using an element (e.g. someElement.getElementByInnerText()) instead of document.

You might need to tweak it in order to make it cross-browser or satisfy your needs.

I think the code is self-explanatory, so I'll leave it as it is.

HTMLElement.prototype.getElementsByInnerText = function (text, escape) {
    var nodes  = this.querySelectorAll("*");
    var matches = [];
    for (var i = 0; i < nodes.length; i++) {
        if (nodes[i].innerText == text) {
            matches.push(nodes[i]);
        }
    }
    if (escape) {
        return matches;
    }
    var result = [];
    for (var i = 0; i < matches.length; i++) {
        var filter = matches[i].getElementsByInnerText(text, true);
        if (filter.length == 0) {
            result.push(matches[i]);
        }
    }
    return result;
};
document.getElementsByInnerText = HTMLElement.prototype.getElementsByInnerText;

HTMLElement.prototype.getElementByInnerText = function (text) {
    var result = this.getElementsByInnerText(text);
    if (result.length == 0) return null;
    return result[0];
}
document.getElementByInnerText = HTMLElement.prototype.getElementByInnerText;

console.log(document.getElementsByInnerText("Text1"));
console.log(document.getElementsByInnerText("Text2"));
console.log(document.getElementsByInnerText("Text4"));
console.log(document.getElementsByInnerText("Text6"));

console.log(document.getElementByInnerText("Text1"));
console.log(document.getElementByInnerText("Text2"));
console.log(document.getElementByInnerText("Text4"));
console.log(document.getElementByInnerText("Text6"));

<table>
    <tr>
        <td>Text1</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>Text2</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>
            <a href="#">Text2</a>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>
            <a href="#"><span>Text3</span></a>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>
            <a href="#">Special <span>Text4</span></a>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>
            Text5
            <a href="#">Text6</a>
            Text7
        </td>
    </tr>
</table>

Answer 2

I found the use of the newer syntax a little bit shorter compared to the others answer. So here's my proposal:

const callback = element => element.innerHTML == 'My research'

const elements = Array.from(document.getElementsByTagName('a'))
// [a, a, a, ...]

const result = elements.filter(callback)

console.log(result)
// [a]

JSfiddle.net

Answer 3

I think you'll need to be a bit more specific for us to help you.

1. How are you finding this? Javascript? PHP? Perl?
2. Can you apply an ID attribute to the tag?

If the text is unique (or really, if it's not, but you'd have to run through an array) you could run a regular expression to find it. Using PHP's preg_match() would work for that.

If you're using Javascript and can insert an ID attribute, then you can use getElementById('id'). You can then access the returned element's attributes through the DOM: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM/element.1.

Answer 4

While it's been quite some time, and you've already (long-since) accepted an answer, I thought I'd offer an updated approach:

function findByTextContent(needle, haystack, precise) {
  // needle: String, the string to be found within the elements.
  // haystack: String, a selector to be passed to document.querySelectorAll(),
  //           NodeList, Array - to be iterated over within the function:
  // precise: Boolean, true - searches for that precise string, surrounded by
  //                          word-breaks,
  //                   false - searches for the string occurring anywhere
  var elems;

  // no haystack we quit here, to avoid having to search
  // the entire document:
  if (!haystack) {
    return false;
  }
  // if haystack is a string, we pass it to document.querySelectorAll(),
  // and turn the results into an Array:
  else if ('string' == typeof haystack) {
    elems = [].slice.call(document.querySelectorAll(haystack), 0);
  }
  // if haystack has a length property, we convert it to an Array
  // (if it's already an array, this is pointless, but not harmful):
  else if (haystack.length) {
    elems = [].slice.call(haystack, 0);
  }

  // work out whether we're looking at innerText (IE), or textContent 
  // (in most other browsers)
  var textProp = 'textContent' in document ? 'textContent' : 'innerText',
    // creating a regex depending on whether we want a precise match, or not:
    reg = precise === true ? new RegExp('\\b' + needle + '\\b') : new RegExp(needle),
    // iterating over the elems array:
    found = elems.filter(function(el) {
      // returning the elements in which the text is, or includes,
      // the needle to be found:
      return reg.test(el[textProp]);
    });
  return found.length ? found : false;;
}


findByTextContent('link', document.querySelectorAll('li'), false).forEach(function(elem) {
  elem.style.fontSize = '2em';
});

findByTextContent('link3', 'a').forEach(function(elem) {
  elem.style.color = '#f90';
});

<ul>
  <li><a href="#">link1</a>
  </li>
  <li><a href="#">link2</a>
  </li>
  <li><a href="#">link3</a>
  </li>
  <li><a href="#">link4</a>
  </li>
  <li><a href="#">link5</a>
  </li>
</ul>

Of course, a somewhat simpler way still is:

var textProp = 'textContent' in document ? 'textContent' : 'innerText';

// directly converting the found 'a' elements into an Array,
// then iterating over that array with Array.prototype.forEach():
[].slice.call(document.querySelectorAll('a'), 0).forEach(function(aEl) {
  // if the text of the aEl Node contains the text 'link1':
  if (aEl[textProp].indexOf('link1') > -1) {
    // we update its style:
    aEl.style.fontSize = '2em';
    aEl.style.color = '#f90';
  }
});

<ul>
  <li><a href="#">link1</a>
  </li>
  <li><a href="#">link2</a>
  </li>
  <li><a href="#">link3</a>
  </li>
  <li><a href="#">link4</a>
  </li>
  <li><a href="#">link5</a>
  </li>
</ul>

References:

• Array.prototype.filter().
• Array.prototype.forEach().
• Array.prototype.slice().
• Conditional ('ternary', assessment ? ifTrue : ifFalse) operator.
• Function.prototype.call().
• typeof operator.

Answer 5

While it's possible to get by the inner text, I think you are heading the wrong way. Is that inner string dynamically generated? If so, you can give the tag a class or -- better yet -- ID when the text goes in there. If it's static, then it's even easier.

Answer 6

Using the most modern syntax available at the moment, it can be done very cleanly like this:

for (const a of document.querySelectorAll("a")) {
  if (a.textContent.includes("your search term")) {
    console.log(a.textContent)
  }
}

Or with a separate filter:

[...document.querySelectorAll("a")]
   .filter(a => a.textContent.includes("your search term"))
   .forEach(a => console.log(a.textContent))

Naturally, legacy browsers won't handle this, but you can use a transpiler if legacy support is needed.