How Do You Select All p Elements Inside a Div Element?

To select all p elements inside a div element, we can do this using JavaScript, jQuery, or CSS. Let’s take a look at how to do this in each.

Let’s first look at how to select all p elements inside a div element using JavaScript.

We will have to use the getElementById() method along with the getElementsByTagName() method. This will get us a list of all of the p elements within the div. We then have to loop through each one to access each p element.

var pTags = document.getElementById("div1").getElementsByTagName('p');
for( var i=0; i<pTags.length; i++ ){
  pTags[i]
  //Do something to each p element
}

Let’s take a look at this with an example.

<div id="div1">
  <p>This is a paragraph in a div element div1.</p>
  <p>This is a paragraph in a div element div1.</p>
  <p>This is a paragraph in a div element div1.</p>
</div>
<div id="div2">
  <p>This is a paragraph in a div element div2.</p>
  <p>This is a paragraph in a div element div2.</p>
  <p>This is a paragraph in a div element div2.</p>
</div>

Using our JavaScript code from above, we can select all p elements inside the div, #div1 and change the background of each one. Let’s see the code above first without any JavaScript code affecting it.

And now let’s use the following JavaScript code to change the background color of each p element in #div1 to green.

var pTags = document.getElementById("div1").getElementsByTagName('p');
for( var i=0; i<pTags.length; i++ ){
  pTags[i].style.backgroundColor = "green";
}

Which would result in the following:

This can be done with much less code by using jQuery. Let’s see how this is done below.

How To Select All p Elements Inside a Div Element Using jQuery

We can use jQuery to select all p elements inside a div element easily. Here is the code to do this.

$("#div1 p")

And that’s it.

Let’s see this in action with our same example from above.

<div id="div1">
  <p>This is a paragraph in a div element div1.</p>
  <p>This is a paragraph in a div element div1.</p>
  <p>This is a paragraph in a div element div1.</p>
</div>
<div id="div2">
  <p>This is a paragraph in a div element div2.</p>
  <p>This is a paragraph in a div element div2.</p>
  <p>This is a paragraph in a div element div2.</p>
</div>

And here is the jQuery code to change the background colors of all p elements in #div1 to green.

$("#div1 p").css("background-color","green");

Which would result in the following:

Finally, let’s see this done using CSS.

How To Select All p Elements Inside a Div Element Using CSS

We can use CSS to select all p elements inside a div element easily. Here is the code to do this.

<style>#div1 p { 
  //Do something to each p in div1 
}</style>

Let’s see this in action with our same example from above.

<style>#div1 p { background-color: green; }</style>
<div id="div1">
  <p>This is a paragraph in a div element div1.</p>
  <p>This is a paragraph in a div element div1.</p>
  <p>This is a paragraph in a div element div1.</p>
</div>
<div id="div2">
  <p>This is a paragraph in a div element div2.</p>
  <p>This is a paragraph in a div element div2.</p>
  <p>This is a paragraph in a div element div2.</p>
</div>

Which would result in the following once more:

Hopefully this article has been useful to help you understand how to select all p elements inside a div element.