How do you check if a JavaScript Object is a DOM Object?

dom, javascript, object

Solution

This might be of interest:

function isElement(obj) {
  try {
    //Using W3 DOM2 (works for FF, Opera and Chrome)
    return obj instanceof HTMLElement;
  }
  catch(e){
    //Browsers not supporting W3 DOM2 don't have HTMLElement and
    //an exception is thrown and we end up here. Testing some
    //properties that all elements have (works on IE7)
    return (typeof obj==="object") &&
      (obj.nodeType===1) && (typeof obj.style === "object") &&
      (typeof obj.ownerDocument ==="object");
  }
}

It's part of the DOM, Level2.

Update 2: This is how I implemented it in my own library: (the previous code didn't work in Chrome, because Node and HTMLElement are functions instead of the expected object. This code is tested in FF3, IE7, Chrome 1 and Opera 9).

//Returns true if it is a DOM node
function isNode(o){
  return (
    typeof Node === "object" ? o instanceof Node : 
    o && typeof o === "object" && typeof o.nodeType === "number" && typeof o.nodeName==="string"
  );
}

//Returns true if it is a DOM element    
function isElement(o){
  return (
    typeof HTMLElement === "object" ? o instanceof HTMLElement : //DOM2
    o && typeof o === "object" && o !== null && o.nodeType === 1 && typeof o.nodeName==="string"
);
}

Problem

I'm trying to get: ``` document.createElement('div') //=> true {tagName: 'foobar something'} //=> false ``` In my own scripts, I used to just use this since I never needed `tagName` as a property: ``` if (!object.tagName) throw ...; ``` So for the second object, I came up with the following as a quick solution -- which mostly works. ;) The problem is, it depends on browsers enforcing read-only properties, which not all do. ``` function isDOM(obj) { var tag = obj.tagName; try { obj.tagName = ''; // Read-only for DOM, should throw exception obj.tagName = tag; // Restore for normal objects return false; } catch (e) { return true; } } ``` Is there a good substitute?

Original source

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