What does JavaScript element.style='whatever' do to the html?

Question

Does it enclose the element within a SPAN element with the given style or does it just assign the style to the attributes of the element itself? How about when I do element.style.border='1px solid red'? Does it depend on the browser or is there a rule?

Answer 1

It always assigns them to the element's style itself. I know of no browser that would introduce additional HTML elements into the DOM after setting the style property.

Answer 2

The styling would be assigned to the element's style attribute. For example:

var myDiv = document.getElementById('outlined');
myDiv.style.border='1px solid red';

Would turn <div id="outlined"></div> into:

<div id="outlined" style="border: 1px solid red;"></div>