How can javascript determine the type of an html element?

Question

I feel like this should be really easy to do, but I'm stumped. I need a way for Javascript to determine the type of an HTML element. It has the id, but the element itself could be a div, a form field, a fieldset, etc. Can anyone tell me how to do this?

Answer 1

What about element.tagName?

Answer 2

I think nodeName is the attribute you are looking for. For example:

var elt = document.getElemementById('foo');
alert(elt.nodeName);