getAttribute

getAttribute is a method available on DOM Element objects that retrieves the value of a specified HTML attribute as a string. It accepts the attribute’s name as an argument and returns the attribute’s value, or null if the attribute is not present on the element.

The value returned by getAttribute is the raw value as it appears in the HTML markup. This differs from a property of the element (for example, element.href or element.src), which may reflect a processed or resolved value. For boolean attributes such as disabled or checked, the attribute can be present without a value in markup; in that case getAttribute returns an empty string, while null indicates the attribute is absent.

There is also getAttributeNS for attributes that reside in a specific namespace, and getAttributeNode for retrieving an Attr node. In contrast to getAttribute, properties of elements often reflect the current state or computed values and may not correspond to the attribute’s original string.

Typical usage examples include reading attributes defined in HTML, such as a link’s href, data attributes, or custom attributes. Example: var hrefValue = document.querySelector('a').getAttribute('href'); If the attribute is not present, this returns null. When deeper processing is needed, such as obtaining fully resolved URLs, the corresponding property (e.g., element.href) may be used instead of getAttribute.