Javascript DOM Get Parent Nodes: All Nodes Or Specific Node By Id Or By Tag Name

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OBJECTIVE: given a dom node (html tag) find its parent nodes: either all or until a specified one is located.  
Note: this procedure returns parent nodes only: if you want all the nodes you may check Javascript Scan Arrays Matrix, Dom Trees, Tag Attributes. Map Or Find Values.  
 
This process could be useful for instance also in those cases where you want to verify whether some event handler has been triggered from within a specific wider context: for instance if an onclick upon an image has been performed upon an image nested within, say, a DIV tag with some specific id or className or whatever.  

function getParent(element, parent){
if(typeof element=="string"){element=document.getElementById(element);};
if(!element){return null;};
var elements=[];
if(typeof parent!="string"){/*no parent: gets all parents till #document*/
	while(element.parentNode){
	element=element.parentNode;
	elements.unshift(element);
		if(element==parent){return elements;};
	}
}
else{/*string, presumes you want to locate the first parent node that is such TAG*/
parent=parent.toUpperCase();
	while(element.parentNode){
	element=element.parentNode;
	elements.unshift(element);
		if(element.nodeName && element.nodeName.toUpperCase()==parent){return elements;};
	}
};
return elements;
/* keep this comment to reuse freely:
http://www.fullposter.com/?1 */}

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INPUTS: first the node whose parents you want to find, passed as an object either already grabbed via document.getElementById or as the string id of the node.  
Then as second input either nothing (it reports all parent nodes), or an already grabbed node via document.getElementById, or a string: in this last case it is presumed the string is the first tag name (instance: "DIV") that you want to locate as parent of the first passed node.  
 
RETURNS: null if the input was not a valid DOM node, or an array holding all the parent node objects traversed in the process, with the outermost nodes starting at index 0. Therefore if you were looking for one specific node, it will be always located at entry 0 if found.  
Since the items held by the array are valid DOM objects, you can execute read or write any of them using DOM properties or methods.  
 
Returns empty array if no (such) parent node could be located.  
 
CAVEATS: if you grab all the parent nodes, namely you do not pass the second input argument, the topmost item in the returned array will be: #document.  
It is advisable that your html does not include nesting errors or misplaced settings such as, for instance, LI tags without OL or UL containing tags.  
 
Example:  

<div id="outerdiv">
<div id="innermostdiv" class="divin">
<ul>
<li id='foo'>blah blah</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>

<script>
var foundnodes=getParent('foo', 'DIV');

alert(foundnodes[0].nodeName+' '+foundnodes[0].id+' '+foundnodes[0].className);
</script>

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