# HTML DOM previousElementSibling Property

Element Object

## Example

Get the HTML content of the previous sibling of a list item:

var x = document.getElementById("item2").previousElementSibling.innerHTML;

The result of x will be:

Coffee (first li)
Try it yourself »

## Definition and Usage

The previousElementSibling property returns the previous element of the specified element, in the same tree level.

The difference between this property and previousSibling, is that previousSibling returns the previous sibling node as an element node, a text node or a comment node, while previousElementSibling returns the previous sibling node as an element node (ignores text and comment nodes).

This property is read-only.

Tip: Use the nextElementSibling property to return the next element of the specified element.

Tip: Use the children property to return any child element of a specified element.

## Browser Support

Property |  |  |  |  |
--- | --- | --- | --- | --- | ---
previousElementSibling | 2.0 | 9.0 | 3.5 | 4.0 | 10.0

## Syntax

node.previousElementSibling

## Technical Details

Return Value: | A Node object, representing the previous sibling of an element, or null if there is no previous sibling
DOM Version | Core Level 3 Element Traversal

Element Object

### WEB HOSTING

UK Reseller Hosting

### WEB BUILDING

FREE Website BUILDER Free HTML5 Templates

### W3SCHOOLS EXAMS

HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, jQuery, XML, and ASP Certifications

### SHARE THIS PAGE

### Color Picker

### HTML/CSS

HTML Tutorial HTML5 Tutorial CSS Tutorial CSS3 Tutorial Bootstrap Tutorial

### JavaScript

JavaScript Tutorial jQuery Tutorial jQuery Mobile Tutorial AngularJS Tutorial AJAX Tutorial JSON Tutorial

### Graphics

Canvas Tutorial SVG Tutorial Google Maps Tutorial

### Server Side

SQL Tutorial PHP Tutorial ASP Tutorial ASP.NET Tutorial VBScript Tutorial AppML Tutorial

### Web

Web Building Web Statistics Web Certification

### XML

XML Tutorial DTD Tutorial Schema Tutorial XML DOM Tutorial XPath Tutorial XSLT Tutorial XQuery Tutorial XSL-FO Tutorial RSS Tutorial WSDL Tutorial

### HTML/CSS

HTML Tag Reference HTML Event Reference HTML Color Reference CSS 1,2,3 Reference Bootstrap Reference

### JavaScript

JavaScript Reference HTML DOM Reference jQuery Reference jQuery Mobile Reference Google Maps Reference

### Server Side

PHP Reference SQL Reference ASP Reference VBScript Reference Razor Reference ASP.NET Reference

### XML

XML DOM Reference XSLT Reference XSL-FO Reference XPath Reference XQuery Reference Schema Reference RSS Reference SVG Reference

### HTML Charsets

HTML Character Sets HTML ASCII HTML ANSI HTML Windows-1252 HTML ISO-8859-1 HTML Symbols HTML UTF-8

### HTML/CSS

HTML Examples CSS Examples

### Browser Scripting

JavaScript Examples HTML DOM Examples jQuery Examples jQuery Mobile Examples AngularJS Examples AJAX Examples

### Server Scripting

PHP Examples ASP Examples VBScript Examples Razor Examples .NET Examples

### XML Languages

XML Examples DTD Examples XML DOM Examples XSL Examples XSLT Examples XPath Examples XQuery Examples Schema Examples RSS Examples SVG Examples