How to get element by innerText

Solution 1:

You could use xpath to accomplish this

var xpath = "//a[text()='SearchingText']";
var matchingElement = document.evaluate(xpath, document, null, XPathResult.FIRST_ORDERED_NODE_TYPE, null).singleNodeValue;

You can also search of an element containing some text using this xpath:

var xpath = "//a[contains(text(),'Searching')]";

Solution 2:

You'll have to traverse by hand.

var aTags = document.getElementsByTagName("a");
var searchText = "SearchingText";
var found;

for (var i = 0; i < aTags.length; i++) {
  if (aTags[i].textContent == searchText) {
    found = aTags[i];
    break;
  }
}

// Use `found`.

Solution 3:

Using the most modern syntax available at the moment, it can be done very cleanly like this:

for (const a of document.querySelectorAll("a")) {
  if (a.textContent.includes("your search term")) {
    console.log(a.textContent)
  }
}

Or with a separate filter:

[...document.querySelectorAll("a")]
   .filter(a => a.textContent.includes("your search term"))
   .forEach(a => console.log(a.textContent))

Naturally, legacy browsers won't handle this, but you can use a transpiler if legacy support is needed.

Solution 4:

You can use jQuery :contains() Selector

var element = $( "a:contains('SearchingText')" );

Solution 5:

function findByTextContent(needle, haystack, precise) {
  // needle: String, the string to be found within the elements.
  // haystack: String, a selector to be passed to document.querySelectorAll(),
  //           NodeList, Array - to be iterated over within the function:
  // precise: Boolean, true - searches for that precise string, surrounded by
  //                          word-breaks,
  //                   false - searches for the string occurring anywhere
  var elems;

  // no haystack we quit here, to avoid having to search
  // the entire document:
  if (!haystack) {
    return false;
  }
  // if haystack is a string, we pass it to document.querySelectorAll(),
  // and turn the results into an Array:
  else if ('string' == typeof haystack) {
    elems = [].slice.call(document.querySelectorAll(haystack), 0);
  }
  // if haystack has a length property, we convert it to an Array
  // (if it's already an array, this is pointless, but not harmful):
  else if (haystack.length) {
    elems = [].slice.call(haystack, 0);
  }

  // work out whether we're looking at innerText (IE), or textContent 
  // (in most other browsers)
  var textProp = 'textContent' in document ? 'textContent' : 'innerText',
    // creating a regex depending on whether we want a precise match, or not:
    reg = precise === true ? new RegExp('\\b' + needle + '\\b') : new RegExp(needle),
    // iterating over the elems array:
    found = elems.filter(function(el) {
      // returning the elements in which the text is, or includes,
      // the needle to be found:
      return reg.test(el[textProp]);
    });
  return found.length ? found : false;;
}


findByTextContent('link', document.querySelectorAll('li'), false).forEach(function(elem) {
  elem.style.fontSize = '2em';
});

findByTextContent('link3', 'a').forEach(function(elem) {
  elem.style.color = '#f90';
});

<ul>
  <li><a href="#">link1</a>
  </li>
  <li><a href="#">link2</a>
  </li>
  <li><a href="#">link3</a>
  </li>
  <li><a href="#">link4</a>
  </li>
  <li><a href="#">link5</a>
  </li>
</ul>

Of course, a somewhat simpler way still is:

var textProp = 'textContent' in document ? 'textContent' : 'innerText';

// directly converting the found 'a' elements into an Array,
// then iterating over that array with Array.prototype.forEach():
[].slice.call(document.querySelectorAll('a'), 0).forEach(function(aEl) {
  // if the text of the aEl Node contains the text 'link1':
  if (aEl[textProp].indexOf('link1') > -1) {
    // we update its style:
    aEl.style.fontSize = '2em';
    aEl.style.color = '#f90';
  }
});

<ul>
  <li><a href="#">link1</a>
  </li>
  <li><a href="#">link2</a>
  </li>
  <li><a href="#">link3</a>
  </li>
  <li><a href="#">link4</a>
  </li>
  <li><a href="#">link5</a>
  </li>
</ul>

References:

Array.prototype.filter().
Array.prototype.forEach().
Array.prototype.slice().
Conditional ('ternary', assessment ? ifTrue : ifFalse) operator.
Function.prototype.call().
typeof operator.