Adding Javascript objects into innerHTML - javascript

Say I create an image object like below. ( create(); is a function I wrote but I know this function works.)
var img = create("img", "images/duba.jpg");
When I try to put this image into the innerHTML of another object that's a div, I get this plain text where the image should show up:
[object HTMLImageElement]
What's the correct method to insert one object into another like this? I have to think there's a more graceful method than hard-coding the innerHTML with strings, which I've tried successfully.

Call appendChild to append the DOM element to an existing element.

You should use DOM manipulation methods. E.g.
element.appendChild [MDN]
element.insertBefore [MDN]

I think you need to use:
otherObject.appendChild(img);

If you are creating an element you can't set it as a node's innerHTML, that takes a string of HTML. Just use DOM manipulation
parent.appendChild ( create("img", "images/duba.jpg") );

Use the appendChild method. The innerHTML property receives a string, not a DOM element.
https://developer.mozilla.org/En/DOM/Node.appendChild

Related

How to insert created object into a div

I created an iframe using jQuery that I want to insert into an existing div element. However, when I use innerHTML to insert it, it shows up as: "[object HTMLIFrameElement]"
What could be the reason for this?
Here is the example: http://jsfiddle.net/MarkKramer/PYX5s/2/
You want to use the appendChild method rather than innerHTML. Change the last line in the JSFiddle from
iframediv.innerHTML = iframe;
to
iframediv.appendChild(iframe);
Edit to actually answer your question:
Your variable iframe is a reference to a DOM element. It's object representation is an <iframe> element while its textual representation is simply [object HTMLIFrameElement].
By using innerHTML you are attempting to insert its textual representation into the DOM. This is just how the method works. You may come across JS code where elements are added to the DOM via innerHTML, but it's always with text, e.g.
element.innerHTML = '<div>some text</div>';
In this case the browser will correctly add a <div> node as a child of element.
For your <iframe> element to be inserted into the DOM using the variable iframe, you must use the appendChild method which will add the IFrame object as a child node to iframediv.
$('#iframecontainer').append(iframe);
instead of
var iframediv = document.getElementById('iframecontainer');
iframediv.innerHTML = iframe;
should fix the problem
var new_iframe = $("<iframe></iframe>");
new_iframe.appendTo($("#div_to_insert_into"));
The idea behind (most) of the posted solutions is that you can work with your iframe and it's container as jQuery objects instead of regular dom elements. A jQuery object is a reference to a div or an iframe that has access to all of jQuery's awesome methods... like .append() and .click().
Generally speaking, jQuery's real purpose is to turn lines of code like
var iframediv = document.getElementById('iframecontainer');
...into ...
var iframediv = $("#iframecontainer");
...which you can then use to do with whatever you please, like
iframediv.appendTo("#anotherDiv");
Good luck.

Help me understand whats wrong with my javascript

If I do this-
alert(anchor);
I get this-
"[object HTMLLIElement]"
... ok, yep, it is the element I want. So I want to get that elements ID.
So I test it like this:
alert(anchor.attr("id"));
... but I don't get any alert, nothing. I must not be selecting an element. What am I doing wrong, what don't I understand?
There are two problems:
.attr() is a function jQuery objects have, you have a DOM element (you would need $(anchor) to use jQuery methods against the element).
You don't need it anyway, the .id property will work (and be much faster), like this:
alert(anchor.id);
That's because attr is not a defined method or property on anchor. anchor is a raw HTML element object. It's not a jQuery object (I'm assuming you're using jQuery because you used the attr method).
To get the id, all you have to do is anchor.id. If you really want to use attr, you can do jQuery(anchor).attr("id").
if you are using jquery, then you need this:
alert($(anchor).attr("id"));
The attr() function is part of jQuery, but you're trying to get it from a plain DOM object. You either want to use $(anchor) (to wrap the element in jQuery) or call anchor.getAttribute("id") instead.

Can I get the full HTML representation of an HTMLElement DOM object?

I'm using jquery to parse some HTML, something like:
$(html).contents().each(function(){
var element = this.tagName;
...
I can access the tagName, children, parent... using the DOM or the more friendly jQuery functions.
But at one point a need the whole HTML of the current element (not what innerHTML or .html() return) and I can't figure out a one liner to get it (I always could attach the tag and the attributes manually to the innerHTML).
For example:
Link
The innerHTML is Link but I'm looking for the whole Link
does that oneliner exists?
Looks like this guy has a pretty nifty solution using jQuery: outerHTML
just saw the anwser for this on the other thread :D
outerHTML
outerHTML 2

jquery changing innerhtml of a P isn't working

I have what I thought was a simple select with jQuery to change some text on a paragraph. It works perfect the traditional way i.e.
document.getElementById('message_text').innerHTML = "hello";
But with jQuery it doesn't. I have checked the values of $('#message_text') and sure enough I see the items.
$('#message_text').innerHTML = "hello";
Am I doing something wrong?
Anyone have any ideas?
When you do something like $('#message_text') what you have there is not a regular DOM object, but a jQuery wrapped set (even though in this case it'd only be one element.) If you wanted to access a particular DOM property, you could do this:
$('#message_text')[0].innerHTML = 'whatever';
$('#message_text').get(0).innerHTML = 'whatever';
However, this isn't necessary in this case as jQuery has two functions to do what you want:
html():
$('#message_text').html('whatever');
text():
$('#message_text').text('whatever');
The difference between the two is that html() will allow HTML while text() will escape any HTML tags you pass to it. Use the one you need over manually manipulating the HTML with innerHTML.
The jQuery function $() is not returning a HTMLElement object like getElementById() does but a jQuery object. And there you just have the html() method as equivalent to innerHTML. So:
$('#message_text').html('hello');
$('#message_text').html('hello')
jQuery selector returns an array, not a DOM Element node.

How to read all child elements with tag names and their value from a xml file?

I've a xml file in which I'm storing some HTML content in an element tag called <body>. Now I'm trying to read all the HTML content of body tag using XML DOM in JavaScript.
I tried this code:
var xmlDoc=loadXMLDoc('QID_627.xml');
var bodytag = xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("body");
document.write(bodytag);
but it is showing [object HTMLCollection] message on the browser screen.
Try this:
var xmlDoc=loadXMLDoc('QID_627.xml');
var bodytags = xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName("body");
document.write(bodytags[0]);
getElementsByTagName returns an array of elements (even if just one is found) so you need to subscript the array to retrieve your element.
Andrew Hare pointed out that getElementsByTagName() always returns an array, so you have to use bodytag[0] to get the element you want. This is correct, but not complete since even when you do that you'll still get an equally useless "[object ElementName]" message.
If you're set on using document.write() you can try to serialize out the content of the body tag with
document.write(bodytag[0].innerHTML);
Better yet would be directly attaching the source DOM nodes into your destination DOM.
You'd use something like
document.getElementById("destinationNodeId").appendChild(bodytag[0]);
There may be some issues with attaching DOM nodes from another document that may require you to copy the nodes, or jump through some other hoops to have it work.
You need to use document.write(bodytag.toXMLString());
EDIT: Andrew Hare also points out you need to subscript first. I think you may still need to use the toXMLString call as well.

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