JavaScript HTML DOM Elements (Nodes)

Creating New HTML Elements

To add a new element to the HTML DOM, you must create the element (element node) first, and then append it to an existing element.

 Example

This is a paragraph.

This is another paragraph.

Try it yourself »

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Example Explained 

This code creates a new element:

var para=document.createElement("p");

To add text to the element, you must create a text node first. This code creates a text node:

var node=document.createTextNode("This is a new paragraph.");

Then you must append the text node to the element:

para.appendChild(node);

Finally you must append the new element to an existing element.
This code finds an existing element:

var element=document.getElementById("div1");

This code appends the new element to the existing element:

element.appendChild(para);

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Removing Existing HTML Elements

To remove an HTML element, you must know the parent of the element:

Example

This is a paragraph.

This is another paragraph.

Try it yourself »

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Example Explained 

This HTML document contains a

element with two child nodes (two elements):

This is a paragraph.

This is another paragraph.

Find the element with id="div1":

var parent=document.getElementById("div1");

Find the element with id="p1":

var child=document.getElementById("p1");

Remove the child from the parent:

parent.removeChild(child);

	It would be nice to be able to remove an element without referring to the parent. But sorry. The DOM needs to know both the element you want to remove, and its parent.

Here is a common workaround: Find the child you want to remove, and use its parentNode property to find the parent:

var child=document.getElementById("p1");
child.parentNode.removeChild(child);

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HTML DOM Tutorial

In the HTML DOM section of this JavaScript tutorial you have learned:

• How to change the content (innerHTML) of HTML elements
• How to change the style (CSS) of HTML elements
• How to react to HTML DOM events
• How to add or delete HTML elements

If you want to learn more about using JavaScript to access the HTML DOM, please go to our
Full HTML DOM Tutorial.