Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

JavaScript JavaScript and the DOM (Retiring) Making Changes to the DOM Appending Nodes

Hector Galicia-Milla
Hector Galicia-Milla
8,064 Points

value vs textContent

I was just wondering for example why you can clear the input with input.value = ' ' but you cant do it with input.textContent= ' ' j5

1 Answer

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,271 Points

The properties "value" and "textContent" represent different things. Any node has a "textContent", including text nodes which are not elements. It represents the text content of the node itself along with any and all descendants.

But only input elements have a "value". It represent the input data supplied by the user or provided initially by the code. Also, input elements may have a "textContent" property but it will always be empty since they are void elements.