JavaScript HTML DOM Elements (Nodes)
Adding and Removing Nodes (HTML Elements)
Creating New HTML Elements (Nodes)
To add a new element to the HTML DOM, you must create the element (element node) first, and then append it to an existing element.
Example
<p id="p1">This is a paragraph.</p>
<p id="p2">This is another paragraph.</p>
</div>
<script>
const para = document.createElement("p");
const node = document.createTextNode("This is new.");
para.appendChild(node);
const element = document.getElementById("div1");
element.appendChild(para);
</script>
Example Explained
This code creates a new<p> element:
To add text to the<p> element, you must create a text node first. This code creates a text node:
Then you must append the text node to the<p> element:
Finally you must append the new element to an existing element.
This code finds an existing element:
This code appends the new element to the existing element:
Creating new HTML Elements - insertBefore()
TheappendChild() method in the previous example, appended the new element as the last child of the parent.
If you don't want that you can use theinsertBefore() method:
Example
<p id="p1">This is a paragraph.</p>
<p id="p2">This is another paragraph.</p>
</div>
<script>
const para = document.createElement("p");
const node = document.createTextNode("This is new.");
para.appendChild(node);
const element = document.getElementById("div1");
const child = document.getElementById("p1");
element.insertBefore(para, child);
</script>
Removing Existing HTML Elements
To remove an HTML element, use theremove() method:
Example
<p id="p1">This is a paragraph.</p>
<p id="p2">This is another paragraph.</p>
</div>
<script>
const elmnt = document.getElementById("p1");elmnt.remove();
</script>
Example Explained
The HTML document contains a<div> element with two child nodes (two<p> elements):
<p id="p1">This is a paragraph.</p>
<p id="p2">This is another paragraph.</p>
</div>
Find the element you want to remove:
Then execute the remove() method on that element:
Theremove() method does not work in older browsers, see the example below on how to useremoveChild() instead.
Removing a Child Node
For browsers that does not support theremove() method, you have to find the parent node to remove an element:
Example
<p id="p1">This is a paragraph.</p>
<p id="p2">This is another paragraph.</p>
</div>
<script>
const parent = document.getElementById("div1");
const child = document.getElementById("p1");
parent.removeChild(child);
</script>
Example Explained
This HTML document contains a<div> element with two child nodes (two<p> elements):
<p id="p1">This is a paragraph.</p>
<p id="p2">This is another paragraph.</p>
</div>
Find the element withid="div1":
Find the<p> element withid="p1":
Remove the child from the parent:
Here is a common workaround: Find the child you want to remove, and use itsparentNode property to find the parent:
child.parentNode.removeChild(child);
Replacing HTML Elements
To replace an element to the HTML DOM, use thereplaceChild() method:
Example
<p id="p1">This is a paragraph.</p>
<p id="p2">This is another paragraph.</p>
</div>
<script>
const para = document.createElement("p");
const node = document.createTextNode("This is new.");
para.appendChild(node);
const parent = document.getElementById("div1");
const child = document.getElementById("p1");
parent.replaceChild(para, child);
</script>
