Iterative approach to walking a DOM tree in javascript

visit-nodes-iterative.js

function visit_nodes_iterative(node) {
    node = node || document;

    do
    {
        /* Do something with node here */

        node = node.firstChild || node.nextSibling || function() {
            while ((node = node.parentNode) && !node.nextSibling);
            return node ? node.nextSibling : null;
        }();
    }
    while (node);
}

Moving from one DOM node to the next is easy - you don't need recursion!

1. Move to your firstChild, if you have one
2. If not, move to your nextSibling, if you have one
3. Failing that, back up the tree, trying to move to the nextSibling of your closest ancestor