What's the advantage of creating a TextNode and appending it to an HTML element over setting directly its textContent?
Let's say I have a span.
var span = document.getElementById('my-span');
And I want to change its text. What's the advantage of using :
var my_text = document.createTextNode('Hello!');
span.appendChild(my_text);
over
span.textContent = 'hello';
It 's not really matter of advantage but of proper usage depending on the need.
The fundamental difference is that:
createTextNode() is a method and works just as its name says: it creates an element... then you must do something with it (like in your example, where you append it as a child);
so it is useful if you want to have a new element and place it somewhere
textContent is a property you may get or set, with a unique statement and nothing else;
so it is useful when you only want to change the content of an already existing element
Now in the precise case of your question, you said you want to change the text of the element...
To be more clear say you have the following HTML element:
<span>Original text</span>
If you're using your first solution:
var my_text = document.createTextNode('Hello!');
span.appendChild(my_text);
then it will end with:
<span>Original textHello!</span>
because you appended your textNode.
So you should use the second solution.
what's the different between using:
// assuming using elements/tags 'span' creates an array and want to access its first node
1) var arrayAccess = document.getElementsByTagName('elementName')[0]; // also tried property items()
vs
// assuming I assign an id value to the first span element/tag
// specifically calling a node by using it's id value
2) var idAccess = document.getElementById('idValue');
then if I want to change the text node....when using example 1) it will not work, for example:
arrayAccess.firstChild.nodeValue = 'some text';
or
arrayAccess.innerText/innerHTML/textContent = 'some text';
If I "access" the node through its id value then it seems to work fine....
Why is it that when using array it does not work? I'm new to javascript and the book I'm reading does not provide an answer.
Both are working,
In your first case you need to pass the tag name instead of the element name. Then only it will work.
There might be a case that you trying to set input/form elements using innerHTML. At that moment you need to use .value instead of innerHTML.
InnerHTML should be used for div, span, td and similar elements.
So your html markup example:
<div class="test">test</div>
<div class="test">test1</div>
<span id="test">test2</span>
<button id="abc" onclick="renderEle();">Change Text</button>
Your JS code:
function renderEle() {
var arrayAccess = document.getElementsByTagName('div')[0];
arrayAccess.innerHTML = "changed Text";
var idEle = document.getElementById('test');
idEle.innerHTML = "changed this one as well";
}
Working Fiddle
When you use document.getElementsByTagName('p'), the browser traverses the rendered DOM tree and returns a node list (array) of all elements that have the matching tag.
When you use document.getElementById('something'), the browser traverses the rendered DOM tree and returns a single node matching the ID if it exists (since html ID's are unique).
There are many differences when to use which, but one main factor will be speed (getElementById is much faster since you're only searching for 1 item).
To address your other question, you already have specified that you want the first element in the returned nodeList (index [0]) in your function call:
var arrayAccess = document.getElementsByTagName('elementName')[0];
Therefore, arrayAccess is already set to the first element in the returned query. You should be able to access the text by the following. The same code should work if you used document.getElementById to get the DOM element:
console.log(arrayAccess.textContent);
Here's a fiddle with an example:
http://jsfiddle.net/qoe30w2w/
Hope this helps!
I've searched around using Google and Stack Overflow, but I haven't seemed to find a answer to this. I want to write text inside a <div> element, using JavaScript, and later clear the <div> element, and write more text into it. I am making a simple text adventure game.
This is what I am trying to do:
<DOCTYPE!HTML>
<body>
<div class="gamebox">
<!-- I want to write in this div element -->
</div>
</body>
As a new user to JavaScript, how would I be able to write inside the div element gamebox? Unfortunately, my JavaScript skills are not very good, and it would be nice if you can patiently explain what happens in the code.
You can use querySelector to get a reference to the first element matching any CSS selector. In your case, a class selector:
var div = document.querySelector(".gamebox");
querySelector works on all modern browsers, including IE8. It returns null if it didn't find any matching element. You can also get a list of all matching elements using querySelectorAll:
var list = document.querySelectorAll(".gamebox");
Then you access the elements in that list using 0-based indexes (list[0], list[1], etc.); the length of the list is available from list.length.
Then you can either assign HTML strings to innerHTML:
div.innerHTML = "This is the text, <strong>markup</strong> works too.";
...or you can use createElement or createTextNode and appendChild / insertBefore:
var child = document.createTextNode("I'm text for the div");
div.appendChild(span); // Put the text node in the div
Those functions are found in the DOM. A lot of them are now covered in the HTML5 specification as well (particularly Section 3).
Select a single element with document.querySelector or a collection with document.querySelectorAll.
And then it depends, on what you want to do:
Writing Text into the div or create an Element and append it to the div.
Like mentioned getElementsByClassName is faster. Important to know it when you use this you get returned an array with elements to reach the elment you want you specify its index line [0], [1]
var gameBox = document.getElementsByClassName('gamebox')[0];
Here how you can do it
//returns array with elements
var gameBox = document.getElementsByClassName('gamebox');
//inner HTML (overwrites fsd) this can be used if you direcly want to write in the div
gameBox[0].innerHTML ='<p>the new test</p>';
//Appending when you want to add extra content
//create new element <p>
var newP = document.createElement('p');
//create a new TextNode
var newText = document.createTextNode("i'm a new text");
//append textNode to the new element
newP.appendChild(newText);
//append to the DOM
gameBox[0].appendChild(newP);
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/document.createElement
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/document.getElementsByClassName
I am using clone to add new row to the DOM table dynamically from a button click event like below mentioned. but i want to append the cloned node to a specific row position in the DOM table. i know i can do that by using "insertrow" option but i want to use this using clone.
var newNode = tblBody.rows[1].cloneNode(true);
tblBody.appendChild(newNode);
is there any way to insert or append the "newNode" in a position i dynamically choose rather appending it as last row.
Use .insertBefore() from tblBody, and pass the newNode as teh first argument, and the child of tblBody before which the node should be inserted as the second argument.
// put this node----v before this----v
tblBody.insertBefore(newNode, tblBody.rows[i]);
If tblBody.rows[i] is null or undefined, then .insertBefore() will just behave like .appendChild(), and put it at the end.
node.insertBefore() is what you are looking for: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Node.insertBefore
Let's say:
<div>
pre text
<div class="remove-just-this">
<p>child foo</p>
<p>child bar</p>
nested text
</div>
post text
</div>
to this:
<div>
pre text
<p>child foo</p>
<p>child bar</p>
nested text
post text
</div>
I've been figuring out using Mootools, jQuery and even (raw) JavaScript, but couldn't get the idea how to do this.
Using jQuery you can do this:
var cnt = $(".remove-just-this").contents();
$(".remove-just-this").replaceWith(cnt);
Quick links to the documentation:
contents( ) : jQuery
replaceWith( content : [String | Element | jQuery] ) : jQuery
The library-independent method is to insert all child nodes of the element to be removed before itself (which implicitly removes them from their old position), before you remove it:
while (nodeToBeRemoved.firstChild)
{
nodeToBeRemoved.parentNode.insertBefore(nodeToBeRemoved.firstChild,
nodeToBeRemoved);
}
nodeToBeRemoved.parentNode.removeChild(nodeToBeRemoved);
This will move all child nodes to the correct place in the right order.
You should make sure to do this with the DOM, not innerHTML (and if using the jQuery solution provided by jk, make sure that it moves the DOM nodes rather than using innerHTML internally), in order to preserve things like event handlers.
My answer is a lot like insin's, but will perform better for large structures (appending each node separately can be taxing on redraws where CSS has to be reapplied for each appendChild; with a DocumentFragment, this only occurs once as it is not made visible until after its children are all appended and it is added to the document).
var fragment = document.createDocumentFragment();
while(element.firstChild) {
fragment.appendChild(element.firstChild);
}
element.parentNode.replaceChild(fragment, element);
$('.remove-just-this > *').unwrap()
More elegant way is
$('.remove-just-this').contents().unwrap();
Use modern JS!
const node = document.getElementsByClassName('.remove-just-this')[0];
node.replaceWith(...node.childNodes); // or node.children, if you don't want textNodes
oldNode.replaceWith(newNode) is valid ES5
...array is the spread operator, passing each array element as a parameter
Replace div with its contents:
const wrapper = document.querySelector('.remove-just-this');
wrapper.outerHTML = wrapper.innerHTML;
<div>
pre text
<div class="remove-just-this">
<p>child foo</p>
<p>child bar</p>
nested text
</div>
post text
</div>
Whichever library you are using you have to clone the inner div before removing the outer div from the DOM. Then you have to add the cloned inner div to the place in the DOM where the outer div was. So the steps are:
Save a reference to the outer div's parent in a variable
Copy the inner div to another variable. This can be done in a quick and dirty way by saving the innerHTML of the inner div to a variable or you can copy the inner tree recursively node by node.
Call removeChild on the outer div's parent with the outer div as the argument.
Insert the copied inner content to the outer div's parent in the correct position.
Some libraries will do some or all of this for you but something like the above will be going on under the hood.
And, since you tried in mootools as well, here's the solution in mootools.
var children = $('remove-just-this').getChildren();
children.replaces($('remove-just-this');
Note that's totally untested, but I have worked with mootools before and it should work.
http://mootools.net/docs/Element/Element#Element:getChildren
http://mootools.net/docs/Element/Element#Element:replaces
I was looking for the best answer performance-wise while working on an important DOM.
eyelidlessness's answer was pointing out that using javascript the performances would be best.
I've made the following execution time tests on 5,000 lines and 400,000 characters with a complexe DOM composition inside the section to remove. I'm using an ID instead of a class for convenient reason when using javascript.
Using $.unwrap()
$('#remove-just-this').contents().unwrap();
201.237ms
Using $.replaceWith()
var cnt = $("#remove-just-this").contents();
$("#remove-just-this").replaceWith(cnt);
156.983ms
Using DocumentFragment in javascript
var element = document.getElementById('remove-just-this');
var fragment = document.createDocumentFragment();
while(element.firstChild) {
fragment.appendChild(element.firstChild);
}
element.parentNode.replaceChild(fragment, element);
147.211ms
Conclusion
Performance-wise, even on a relatively big DOM structure, the difference between using jQuery and javascript is not huge. Surprisingly $.unwrap() is most costly than $.replaceWith().
The tests have been done with jQuery 1.12.4.
if you'd like to do this same thing in pyjamas, here's how it's done. it works great (thank you to eyelidness). i've been able to make a proper rich text editor which properly does styles without messing up, thanks to this.
def remove_node(doc, element):
""" removes a specific node, adding its children in its place
"""
fragment = doc.createDocumentFragment()
while element.firstChild:
fragment.appendChild(element.firstChild)
parent = element.parentNode
parent.insertBefore(fragment, element)
parent.removeChild(element)
If you are dealing with multiple rows, as it was in my use case you are probably better off with something along these lines:
$(".card_row").each(function(){
var cnt = $(this).contents();
$(this).replaceWith(cnt);
});
The solution with replaceWith only works when there is one matching element.
When there are more matching elements use this:
$(".remove-just-this").contents().unwrap();