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HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. It's the way web pages and email templates are coded so that text is formatted and images are added. Plain Text is regular text, with no formatting options such as bold, italics, underlines, or special layout options.
jQuery text() Method The text() method sets or returns the text content of the selected elements. When this method is used to return content, it returns the text content of all matched elements (HTML markup will be removed). When this method is used to set content, it overwrites the content of ALL matched elements.
html() method allows the HTML content to be set by passing in a function.
All HTML elements have inner HTML properties. The . html() jQuery method retrieves the HTML content of the first element in the particular set of matched elements. Remember: jQuery innerHTML does not exist as a function.
I think the difference is nearly self-explanatory. And it's super trivial to test.
jQuery.html() treats the string as HTML, jQuery.text() treats the content as text
<html>
<head>
<title>Test Page</title>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
$(function(){
$("#div1").html('<a href="example.html">Link</a><b>hello</b>');
$("#div2").text('<a href="example.html">Link</a><b>hello</b>');
});
</script>
</head>
<body>
<div id="div1"></div>
<div id="div2"></div>
</body>
</html>
A difference that may not be so obvious is described in the jQuery API documentation
In the documentation for .html():
The
.html()method is not available in XML documents.
And in the documentation for .text():
Unlike the
.html()method,.text()can be used in both XML and HTML documents.
$(function() {
$("#div1").html('<a href="example.html">Link</a><b>hello</b>');
$("#div2").text('<a href="example.html">Link</a><b>hello</b>');
});<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
<div id="div1"></div>
<div id="div2"></div>((please update if necessary, this answer is a Wiki))
.text() or .html()?Answer: .html() is faster! See here a "behaviour test-kit" for all the question.
So, in conclusion, if you have "only a text", use html() method.
Note: Doesn't make sense? Remember that the .html() function is only a wrapper to .innerHTML, but in the .text() function jQuery adds an "entity filter", and this filter naturally consumes time.
Ok, if you really want performance... Use pure Javascript to access direct text-replace by the nodeValue property.
Benchmark conclusions:
.html() is ~2x faster than .text()..innerHTML is ~3x faster than .html()..nodeValue is ~50x faster than .html(), ~100x than .text(), and ~20x than .innerHTML.PS: .textContent property was introduced with DOM-Level-3, .nodeValue is DOM-Level-2 and is faster (!).
See this complete benchmark:
// Using jQuery:
simplecron.restart(); for (var i=1; i<3000; i++)
$("#work").html('BENCHMARK WORK');
var ht = simplecron.duration();
simplecron.restart(); for (var i=1; i<3000; i++)
$("#work").text('BENCHMARK WORK');
alert("JQuery (3000x): \nhtml="+ht+"\ntext="+simplecron.duration());
// Using pure JavaScript only:
simplecron.restart(); for (var i=1; i<3000; i++)
document.getElementById('work').innerHTML = 'BENCHMARK WORK';
ht = simplecron.duration();
simplecron.restart(); for (var i=1; i<3000; i++)
document.getElementById('work').nodeValue = 'BENCHMARK WORK';
alert("Pure JS (3000x):\ninnerHTML="+ht+"\nnodeValue="+simplecron.duration());
The first example will actually embed HTML within the div whereas the second example will escape the text by means of replacing element-related characters with their corresponding character entities so that it displays literally (i.e. the HTML will be displayed not rendered).
The text() method entity-escapes any HTML that is passed into it. Use text() when you want to insert HTML code that will be visible to people who view the page.
Technically, your second example produces:
<a href="example.html">Link</a><b>hello</b>
which would be rendered in the browser as:
<a href="example.html">Link</a><b>hello</b>
Your first example will be rendered as an actual link and some bold text.
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