Trouble adding element with text to DOM tree

Question

I created an unordered list of elements and I'm trying to add a new element using DOM manipulation.

var newEl = document.create Element('li');
var newText = document.createTextNode('Hawaii');
var newEl = newEl.appendChild(newText);
document.getElementsByTagName('ul')[0].appendChild(newEl);

The element was added to the ul element but it was not added as an li element, so my new text doesn't have any bulleting.

Answer 1

This line

    var newEl = newEl.appendChild(newText); 

Change to

    newEl.appendChild(newText); 

When you reassign it its not the li anymore (this is not JQ)

Answer 2

.appendChild returns the appended element. In this case your newEl will be a text node after this assignment.

var newEl = newEl.appendChild(newText);

You should remove the assignment and it is fine.