Element.prototype.matches can be used to check if an element includes a certain class
- Published at
- Updated at
- Reading time
- 1min
This post is part of my Today I learned series in which I share all my web development learnings.
To figure out if an element contains a particular class is a quite common operation when building interfaces. Today I came across an article by David Gilbterson which describes "15 HTML element methods you’ve potentially never heard of" and it introduced me to Element.prototype.matches. This element method can be used to check if an element includes a certain class and is way shorter than element.classList.contains. 🎉
const elem = document.querySelector('.foo');
elem.classList.contains('bar'); // true
elem.matches('.bar'); // true
Edited: It turns out matches also capable of dealing with several classes. (elem.matches('.foo, .bar') – "element matches .foo or .bar").