Change the tag but keep the attributes and content -- jQuery/Javascript

Question

<a href="page.html" class="class1 class2" id="thisid">Text</a>

changed to

<p href="page.html" class="class1 class2" id="thisid">Text</p>

I'm familiar with jQuery's replaceWith but that doesn't keep attributes/content as far as I know.

Note: Why would p have a href? Cuz I need to change p back to a on another event.

Answer 1

It's better to create jQuery plugin for future re-usability:

(function (a) {
    a.fn.replaceTagName = function (f) {
        var g = [],
            h = this.length;
        while (h--) {
            var k = document.createElement(f),
                b = this[h],
                d = b.attributes;
            for (var c = d.length - 1; c >= 0; c--) {
                var j = d[c];
                k.setAttribute(j.name, j.value)
            }
            k.innerHTML = b.innerHTML;
            a(b).after(k).remove();
            g[h - 1] = k
        }
        return a(g)
    }
})(window.jQuery);

Usage:

// Replace given object tag's name
$('a').replaceTagName("p");

Example: JSFiddle