Appending multiple non-nested elements for each data member with D3.js

Question

I would like to create multiple non-nested elements using d3 to create a structure like this:

    <div id="parent">         <p> from data[0] </p>         <p> from data[0] </p>          <p> from data[1] </p>         <p> from data[1] </p>          <p> from data[2] </p>         <p> from data[2] </p>     </div> 

creating nested structures would go something like

    d3.select('#parent').selectAll('p').data(data).enter().            append('p')...append('p') 

but I would like to maintain the original selection even after the append, so I could continue appending to the parent element. Thank you!

Answer 1

The idomatic way of doing is with nesting:

var divs = d3.select('#parent').selectAll('p').data(data).enter().append('div');  divs.append('p') divs.append('p') 

Which creates:

<div id="parent">   <div>     <p> from data[0] </p>     <p> from data[0] </p>   </div>    <div>     <p> from data[1] </p>     <p> from data[1] </p>   </div>    <div>     <p> from data[2] </p>     <p> from data[2] </p>   </div> </div> 

If that won't work, save your selection and repeatedly append:

var enterSelection = d3.select('#parent').selectAll('p').data(data).enter();  enterSelection.append('p') enterSelection.append('p') 

then sort what you've added:

d3.select('#parent').selectAll('p').sort(function(a, b){ return a.index - b.index; }) 

You'll need to add an index property to each element of data that describes the sort order. The normal i is only defined in the context of a particular selection, which is lost when we reselect.