previousElementSibling

The previousElementSibling property in JavaScript returns the element immediately preceding the specified element in its parent's childNodes list. It returns null if the specified element is the first child of its parent or if there is no preceding element sibling. This property is part of the Element Traversal API.

Unlike previousSibling, which can return any node type (including text nodes or comment nodes), previousElementSibling specifically returns an Element node. This makes it particularly useful when you need to interact only with other HTML elements. For example, if you have a list of items and you want to select the item just before the current one, previousElementSibling is the appropriate choice.

The browser support for previousElementSibling is widespread, with modern browsers fully supporting it. It is a straightforward way to navigate the Document Object Model (DOM) tree upwards from a given element to its adjacent sibling. This can be employed in various scenarios, such as creating interactive navigation controls, manipulating related form elements, or highlighting adjacent items in a list.

To use previousElementSibling, you first need to obtain a reference to the target element, typically using methods like getElementById, querySelector, or by iterating through a collection of elements. Once you have the element, you can access its previousElementSibling property to get the reference to the preceding sibling element.