SVG with USE tag not rendering

Question

The DOM already includes an empty SVG tag (svg). When I try to dynamically append a USE tag of an existing SVG symbol (symbol) with an id (iconId):

svg.empty();
svg[0].setAttribute('viewBox', symbol.getAttribute('viewBox'));
svg.append('<use xlink:href="#' + iconId + '"></use>');

it no longer renders the SVG. In Chrome, it renders if I add:

 element.html(element.html());

or manually manipulate the viewBox attribute, but that's not a real solution and IE doesn't like it at all. It's worth mentioning that if I append SVG graphics directly, the element renders.

What is happening here and why isn't the SVG drawing after appending the USE tag?

Answer 1

After all it was indeed a matter of namespaces.

Specifically, SVG elements and attributes must be created and set using document.createElementNS and node.setAttributeNS.

$(document).ready(function(evt) { 
  var svgns = 'http://www.w3.org/2000/svg',
      xlinkns = 'http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink',
      use = document.createElementNS(svgns, 'use');
  
  use.setAttributeNS(xlinkns, 'xlink:href', '#save');
  document.getElementById('useSVG').appendChild(use);
});

#svgStore { 
  display: none;  
}

#useSVG {
  width: 16px;
  height: 16px;
}

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.9.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

<svg style="display:none;" id="svgStore" style="display: none;" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
    <symbol viewBox="0 0 16 16" id="save"><title>save</title>       <g id="svgstore3748a955346b4a088bbdc55a22f56504_x31_6_13_"> 
        <path style="fill-rule:evenodd;clip-rule:evenodd;" d="M9,4h2V2H9V4z M13,13H3v1h10V13z M13,11H3v1h10V11z M13,0H0v16h16V3L13,0z
		 M3,1h9v4H3V1z M14,15H2V8h12V15z M13,9H3v1h10V9z">
		   
		 </path> 
      </g> 
    </symbol>
</svg>
SVG use:
<svg id="useSVG" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"></svg>

Thanks to @RobertLongson and http://www.kevlindev.com/tutorials/basics/shapes/js_dom/ for directing to the answer.