elementparentNoderemoveChildelement

elementparentNoderemoveChildelement refers to the common DOM operation of removing a child element from its parent node. In the Document Object Model, every element is a Node, and the parentNode property identifies the node that contains a given node. The removeChild method is defined on the Node interface and removes a specified child node from the parent, detaching it from the DOM and returning the removed node.

Usage typically involves a reference to the parent and the child. For example:

var parent = document.getElementById('parent');

var child = document.getElementById('child');

parent.removeChild(child);

This can also be invoked via the child’s reference:

child.parentNode.removeChild(child);

If the node passed to removeChild is not a child of the specified parent, a DOM exception is thrown, commonly a NotFoundError. If either the parent or the child is not a valid Node, a TypeError or similar exception may be raised. After removal, the DOM is updated so the child is no longer part of the parent’s childNodes collection, and any references to the removed node retained by scripts still point to the detached node.

Modern browsers also support Element.remove(), a convenience method that removes the element itself from the DOM without needing to access its parent. This can be more concise when removing the element from its current position.

Related concepts include the parentNode and parentElement properties, and other DOM manipulation methods such as insertBefore and replaceChild.