getElementsByTagName() equivalent for textNodes

Question

Is there any way to get the collection of all textNode objects within a document?

getElementsByTagName() works great for Elements, but

Answer 1

Here's a modern Iterator version of the fastest TreeWalker method:

function getTextNodesIterator(el) { // Returns an iterable TreeWalker
    const walker = document.createTreeWalker(el, NodeFilter.SHOW_TEXT);
    walker[Symbol.iterator] = () => ({
        next() {
            const value = walker.nextNode();
            return {value, done: !value};
        }
    });
    return walker;
}

Usage:

for (const textNode of getTextNodesIterator(document.body)) {
    console.log(textNode)
}

Safer version

Using the iterator directly might get stuck if you move the nodes around while looping. This is safer, it returns an array:

function getTextNodes(el) { // Returns an array of Text nodes
    const walker = document.createTreeWalker(el, NodeFilter.SHOW_TEXT);
    const nodes = [];
    while (walker.nextNode()) {
        nodes.push(walker.currentNode);
    }
    return nodes;
}