Cross-Browser Compatibility for getElementsByClassName()

The inability of IE6, IE7, and IE8 to utilize the getElementsByClassName() method presents a challenge when attempting to select elements based on their class attribute. However, there are solutions available to overcome this limitation without relying on third-party libraries like jQuery.

Emulating getElementsByClassName() in Older Internet Explorers

To mimic the functionality of getElementsByClassName() in IE6-8, the following script can be implemented:

document.getElementsByClassName = function(cl) {
  var retnode = [];
  var elem = this.getElementsByTagName('*');
  for (var i = 0; i  -1) retnode.push(elem[i]);
  }
  return retnode;
};

Usage:

Simply include the script on your website, and it will extend the document object with a getElementsByClassName() method that works in all major browsers, including older versions of Internet Explorer.

Example:

  
  ...


  

  ...
  var borderDivs = document.getElementsByClassName('red-border');