Adding and Removing Nodes (HTML Elements)
Creating New HTML Elements (Nodes)
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
<div id="div1">
<p id="p1">This is a paragraph.</p>
<p id="p2">This is another paragraph.</p>
</div>
<script>
const para = document.createElement("p");
const node = document.createTextNode("This is new.");
para.appendChild(node);
const element = document.getElementById("div1");
element.appendChild(para);
</script>
Example Explained
This code creates a new <p> element:
const para = document.createElement("p");
To add text to the <p> element, you must create a text node first. This code creates a text node:
const node = document.createTextNode("This is a new paragraph.");
Then you must append the text node to the <p> element:
para.appendChild(node);
Finally you must append the new element to an existing element.
This code finds an existing element:
const element = document.getElementById("div1");
This code appends the new element to the existing element:
element.appendChild(para);
Creating new HTML Elements - insertBefore()
The appendChild() method in the previous example, appended the new element as the last child of the parent.
If you don't want that you can use the insertBefore() method:
Example
<div id="div1">
<p id="p1">This is a paragraph.</p>
<p id="p2">This is another paragraph.</p>
</div>
<script>
const para = document.createElement("p");
const node = document.createTextNode("This is new.");
para.appendChild(node);
const element = document.getElementById("div1");
const child = document.getElementById("p1");
element.insertBefore(para, child);
</script>
Removing Existing HTML Elements
To remove an HTML element, use the remove() method:
Example
<div>
<p id="p1">This is a paragraph.</p>
<p id="p2">This is another paragraph.</p>
</div>
<script>
const elmnt = document.getElementById("p1");
elmnt.remove();
</script>
Example Explained
The HTML document contains a <div> element with two child nodes (two <p> elements):
<div>
<p id="p1">This is a paragraph.</p>
<p id="p2">This is another paragraph.</p>
</div>
Find the element you want to remove:
const elmnt = document.getElementById("p1");
Then execute the remove() method on that element:
elmnt.remove();
Warning: The
remove()method does not work in older browsers, see the example below on how to useremoveChild()instead.
Removing a Child Node
For browsers that does not support the remove() method, you have to find the parent node to remove an element:
Example
<div id="div1">
<p id="p1">This is a paragraph.</p>
<p id="p2">This is another paragraph.</p>
</div>
<script>
const parent = document.getElementById("div1");
const child = document.getElementById("p1");
parent.removeChild(child);
</script>
Example Explained
This HTML document contains a <div> element with two child nodes (two <p> elements):
<div id="div1">
<p id="p1">This is a paragraph.</p>
<p id="p2">This is another paragraph.</p>
</div>
Find the element with id="div1":
const parent = document.getElementById("div1");
Find the <p> element with id="p1":
const child = document.getElementById("p1");
Remove the child from the parent:
parent.removeChild(child);
Here is a common workaround: Find the child you want to remove, and use its parentNode property to find the parent:
const child = document.getElementById("p1");
child.parentNode.removeChild(child);
Replacing HTML Elements
To replace an element to the HTML DOM, use the replaceChild() method:
Example
<div id="div1">
<p id="p1">This is a paragraph.</p>
<p id="p2">This is another paragraph.</p>
</div>
<script>
const para = document.createElement("p");
const node = document.createTextNode("This is new.");
para.appendChild(node);
const parent = document.getElementById("div1");
const child = document.getElementById("p1");
parent.replaceChild(para, child);
</script>
