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Converting HTML string into DOM elements?

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How do I parse a DOM in HTML?

Another way of converting HTML to DOM is to use the traditional document. createElement method. After creating the element, the HTML string can be assigned to the innerHTML attribute of the element and the JS engine would parse it to the child elements of the created element.

How do you convert a string in HTML?

The parseFromString() method of the DOMParser interface converts a string which contains HTML and returns as an HTMLDocument. OUTPUT: You can see that the HTML string is converted to an HTML element as a DOM node. Now, you can use the methods of DOM nodes like appendChild() to use the result.


You can use a DOMParser, like so:

var xmlString = "<div id='foo'><a href='#'>Link</a><span></span></div>";
var doc = new DOMParser().parseFromString(xmlString, "text/xml");
console.log(doc.firstChild.innerHTML); // => <a href="#">Link...
console.log(doc.firstChild.firstChild.innerHTML); // => Link

You typically create a temporary parent element to which you can write the innerHTML, then extract the contents:

var wrapper= document.createElement('div');
wrapper.innerHTML= '<div><a href="#"></a><span></span></div>';
var div= wrapper.firstChild;

If the element whose outer-HTML you've got is a simple <div> as here, this is easy. If it might be something else that can't go just anywhere, you might have more problems. For example if it were a <li>, you'd have to have the parent wrapper be a <ul>.

But IE can't write innerHTML on elements like <tr> so if you had a <td> you'd have to wrap the whole HTML string in <table><tbody><tr>...</tr></tbody></table>, write that to innerHTML and extricate the actual <td> you wanted from a couple of levels down.


Why not use insertAdjacentHTML

for example:

// <div id="one">one</div> 
var d1 = document.getElementById('one'); 
d1.insertAdjacentHTML('afterend', '<div id="two">two</div>');

// At this point, the new structure is:
// <div id="one">one</div><div id="two">two</div>here

Check out John Resig's pure JavaScript HTML parser.

EDIT: if you want the browser to parse the HTML for you, innerHTML is exactly what you want. From this SO question:

var tempDiv = document.createElement('div');
tempDiv.innerHTML = htmlString;

Okay, I realized the answer myself, after I had to think about other people's answers. :P

var htmlContent = ... // a response via AJAX containing HTML
var e = document.createElement('div');
e.setAttribute('style', 'display: none;');
e.innerHTML = htmlContent;
document.body.appendChild(e);
var htmlConvertedIntoDom = e.lastChild.childNodes; // the HTML converted into a DOM element :), now let's remove the
document.body.removeChild(e);

Here is a little code that is useful.

var uiHelper = function () {

var htmls = {};

var getHTML = function (url) {
                /// <summary>Returns HTML in a string format</summary>
                /// <param name="url" type="string">The url to the file with the HTML</param>

    if (!htmls[url])
    {
    var xmlhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
    xmlhttp.open("GET", url, false);
    xmlhttp.send();
    htmls[url] = xmlhttp.responseText;
     };
     return htmls[url];
    };

        return {
            getHTML: getHTML
        };
}();

--Convert the HTML string into a DOM Element

String.prototype.toDomElement = function () {

        var wrapper = document.createElement('div');
        wrapper.innerHTML = this;
        var df= document.createDocumentFragment();
        return df.addChilds(wrapper.children);
};

--prototype helper

HTMLElement.prototype.addChilds = function (newChilds) {
        /// <summary>Add an array of child elements</summary>
        /// <param name="newChilds" type="Array">Array of HTMLElements to add to this HTMLElement</param>
        /// <returns type="this" />
        for (var i = 0; i < newChilds.length; i += 1) { this.appendChild(newChilds[i]); };
        return this;
};

--Usage

 thatHTML = uiHelper.getHTML('/Scripts/elevation/ui/add/html/add.txt').toDomElement();

Just give an id to the element and process it normally eg:

<div id="dv">
<a href="#"></a>
<span></span>
</div>

Now you can do like:

var div = document.getElementById('dv');
div.appendChild(......);

Or with jQuery:

$('#dv').get(0).appendChild(........);