Why does javascript .replace not work on this array key?

Question

here I am adding the text of each '. cmsCategories' div to item_array, but then .replace() won't work on the item_array keys. How can I fix this? (after this I'll write the new contents back into the div). Any help would be awesome!

http://jsfiddle.net/QKHJJ/1/

Javascript:

$(document).ready(function() {

var item_array=new Array();

$("[class=' cmsCategories']").each(function(i, obj) {
item_array.push(obj.innerHTML);
});

item_array[0].replace("icon_dog", "<img src='img/icon_dog.png' alt='icon_dog' />"); 
item_array[0].replace("icon_cat", "<img src='img/icon_cat.png' alt='icon_cat' />"); 

alert(item_array[0]);


});

HTML:

<ul class="cmsSmartListResults">
  <li>
    <div class=" cmsCategories">icon_cat, apple, icon_dog, pear, banana</div>
    <a href="" class=" cmsPageLink"></a>
    <div class=" cmsDescription"></div>
    <div class=" cmsFileSize"></div>
    <a class=" cmsMoreLink"></a>
</li>
  <li>
<div class=" cmsCategories">apple, icon_dog</div>
<a href="" class=" cmsPageLink"></a>
<div class=" cmsDescription"></div>
<div class=" cmsFileSize"></div>
<a class=" cmsMoreLink"></a>
</li>
  <li>
    <div class=" cmsCategories">pear, banana</div>
    <a href="" class=" cmsPageLink"></a>
    <div class=" cmsDescription"></div>
    <div class=" cmsFileSize"></div>
    <a class=" cmsMoreLink"></a>
</li>
</ul>

Answer 1

1) The replace function doesn't change the string you pass (strings are immutable) : it returns a new one.

Do :

var newString = item_array[0].replace(...

or

item_array[0] = item_array[0].replace(...

2) After this operation, you must change the DOM again with $('someselector').html(item_array[0]);

---

The complete code you need is something like

$("[class=' cmsCategories']").each(function(i, obj) {
    var html = $(this).html();
    html = html.replace ...
    $(this).html(html);
});