Property 'rows' does not exist on type 'HTMLElement' in TS

Property 'rows' does not exist on type 'HTMLElement' in TS #

The error "Property 'rows' does not exist on type 'HTMLElement'" occurs when we try to access the rows property on an element that has a type of HTMLElement. To solve the error, use a type assertion to type the element as HTMLTableElement before accessing the property.

property rows not exist type htmlelement

This is the index.html file for the examples in this article.

index.html

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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8" />
  </head>
  <body>
    <table id="table">
      <thead>
        <tr>
          <th colspan="2">The table header</th>
        </tr>
      </thead>
      <tbody>
        <tr>
          <td>Column 1</td>
          <td>Column 2</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
          <td>Column 1</td>
          <td>Column 2</td>
        </tr>
      </tbody>
    </table>

    <script src="./src/index.ts"></script>
  </body>
</html>

And here is an example of how the error occurs in the index.ts file.

src/index.ts

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// 👇️ const table: HTMLElement | null
const table = document.getElementById('table');

// ⛔️ Property 'rows' does not exist on type 'HTMLElement'.ts(2339)
const rows = table?.rows;

The reason we got the error is that the return type of the document.getElementById method is HTMLElement | null and the rows property doesn't exist on the HTMLElement type.

To solve the error, use a type assertion to type the element as an HTMLTableElement.

src/index.ts

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const table = document.getElementById('table') as HTMLTableElement | null;

const rows = table?.rows;

console.log(rows); // 👉️ HTMLCollection(3) [tr, tr, tr]

Type assertions are used when we have information about the type of a value that TypeScript can't know about.

We effectively tell TypeScript that the table variable stores anHTMLTableElement or a null value and not to worry about it.

We used a union type to specify that the variable could still be null, because if an HTML element with the provided id does not exist in the DOM, the getElementById() method returns a null value.

We used the optional chaining (?.) operator to get around the possibly null value in the example.

src/index.ts

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const table = document.getElementById('table') as HTMLTableElement | null;

// 👇️ optional chaining (?.)
const rows = table?.rows;

console.log(rows); // 👉️ HTMLCollection(3) [tr, tr, tr]

The optional chaining operator short-circuits returning undefined if the reference is equal to null or undefined.

In other words, if the table variable stores a null value, we won't attempt to access the rows property on null and get a runtime error.

Alternatively, you can use a simple if statement that serves as a type guard.

src/index.ts

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const table = document.getElementById('table') as HTMLTableElement | null;

// 👉️ table has type HTMLTableElement or null here

if (table != null) {
  // 👉️ table has type HTMLTableElement here
  const rows = table.rows;
  console.log(rows); // 👉️ HTMLCollection(3) [tr, tr, tr]
}

We explicitly check that the table variable does not store a null value.

TypeScript knows that the table variable has a type of HTMLTableElement in the if block and allows us to directly access the rows property.

Which approach you pick to exclude null from the type before accessing the rows property is a matter of personal preference.

However, it's always a best practice to include null in the type assertion, because the getElementById method would return null if no element with the provided id was found.

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Property 'rows' does not exist on type 'HTMLElement' in TS

Property 'rows' does not exist on type 'HTMLElement' in TS #

Conclusion #

Borislav Hadzhiev