My objective is to change the background color of a columns in a table without addressing each data entry individually by Id or Name. I know there are several ways to do this, and I've tried 3 to be exact, and I'm having problems with each. For the sake of simplicity and clarity, In this question, I'm asking how to successfully do it using the  [element.style.backgroundColor](http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/prop_style_backgroundcolor.asp) object in the DOM. Here's my HTML:

```
    <!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
        <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="tester.css">
        <script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.3/jquery.min.js"></script>
        <script type="text/javascript" src="tester.js"></script> 
    </head>
    <body>
    <button type="button" onClick="testerFunction()">Test</button>
        <table>
            <tr>
                <th class="col1">Column 1 Header</th>
                <th class="col2">Column 2 Header</th>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td class="col1">R1 C1</td>
                <td class="col2">R1 C2</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td class="col1">R2 C1</td>
                <td class="col2">R2 C2</td>
            </tr>
        </table>
     </body>
 </html>

```

My CSS file:

```
.col1{
    background-color:lime;  
}

```

And my Javascript file:

```
function testerFunction() {
    alert (document.getElementsByClassName('.col1').style.backgroundColor);  
}

```

When I run it I get roughly the same error in IE, Firefox, and Chrome:

> 
> cannot read property 'backgroundColor' of Undefined.
> 
> 
> 

I have a feeling it has something to do with the data type returned by the [document.getElementsByClassName](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/document.getElementsByClassName?redirectlocale=en-US&redirectslug=DOM%2Fdocument.getElementsByClassName) DOM object. The referenced website says it returns an HTMLcollection. Other places I've found says it returns a "list" of elements. I tried making an array and assigning the result to the array and accessing each element in the array with a loop, but got the same error at the same place. It might be that I just don't know how to handle a, "collection." At any rate, I was expecting, "lime" or the hex or rgb equivalent because that's what I defined in the CSS file. I want to be able to change it with Javascript. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

EDIT: Added arguments to Shylo Hana's Answer to make it more modular

```
function testerFunction() {
    changeColumnColor('col1','blue');
}
function changeColumnColor(column,color) {
    var cols = document.getElementsByClassName(column);
    for(i=0; i<cols.length; i++) {
      cols[i].style.backgroundColor = color;
    }
}

```