How do I replace text inside a div element?

Question

I need to set the text within a DIV element dynamically. What is the best, browser safe approach? I have prototypejs and scriptaculous available.

<div id="panel">
 <div id="field_name">TEXT GOES HERE</div>
</div>

Here's what the function will look like:

function showPanel(fieldName) {
 var fieldNameElement = document.getElementById('field_name');
 //Make replacement here
}

• AnthonyWJones: Does the accepted answer do what you want it to when assigned text like is:- <span style="font-size:36pt">This is big</span>. If this behaviour is desirable then can you re-phrase the question to match?
• James Westgate: Could this be used in a XSS injection attack?

Answer 1

You can simply use:

fieldNameElement.innerHTML = "My new text!";

• Milan Babuškov: Shouldn't single quotes be used for 'static' text?
• ceejayoz: In PHP, yes. In JavaScript, I don't believe it matters.
• 17 of 26: In Javascript, single and double quotes are interchangeable.
• Trident D'Gao: bad advice, because the text may contain HTML-markup-like content by accident
• Joseph Nields: element.innerHTML = "<script>doSomethingMalicious()</script>";won't be a good idea. element.innerHTML = "& neither will this";

Answer 2

Updated for everyone reading this in 2013 and later:

This answer has a lot of SEO, but all the answers are severely out of date and depend on libraries to do things that all current browsers do out of the box.

To replace text inside a div element, use .textContent(), a standard method is provided in all current browsers.

fieldNameElement.textContent = "New text";

• mikemaccana: @Legolas Hence writing 'current browser' two years ago.
• GreySage: Thank you! I was trying the other answers, wondering why 'innerHTML' wasn't working.
• CertainPerformance: You might consider elaborating on why textContent is a superior method to innerHTML: it's faster, safer, and more appropriate when not deliberately trying to insert HTML markup.

Answer 3

function showPanel(fieldName) {
 var fieldNameElement = document.getElementById("field_name");
 while(fieldNameElement.childNodes.length>= 1) {
 fieldNameElement.removeChild(fieldNameElement.firstChild);
 }
 fieldNameElement.appendChild(fieldNameElement.ownerDocument.createTextNode(fieldName));
}

The advantages of doing it this way:

1. It only uses the DOM, so the technique is portable to other languages, and doesn't rely on the non-standard innerHTML
2. fieldName might contain HTML, which could be an attempted XSS attack. If we know it's just text, we should be creating a text node, instead of having the browser parse it for HTML

If I were going to use a javascript library, I'd use jQuery, and do this:

 $("div#field_name").text(fieldName);

Note that @AnthonyWJones' comment is correct: "field_name" isn't a particularly descriptive id or variable name.

• John Topley: Which other languages could you port this technique to?
• Quentin: Any language with a DOM implementation supports this (and most languages have a DOM implementation).
• AnthonyWJones: This is good answer, better than mine and is the correct answer. You might consider tidying the example though. 'fieldname' is not a good name for the function's parameter. In fact it might be best to take two one for the element ID and another for the content, i.e.; elemID, content
• Daniel Papasian: I borrowed fieldName and the ID from the question itself.
• John Topley: The question probably used field_name to make the example generic. Also the questioner mentions that Prototype is available but not jQuery.

Answer 4

I would use Prototype's update method which supports plain text, an HTML snippet or any JavaScript object that defines a toString method.

$("field_name").update("New text");

• Element.update documentation

• John Topley: @Aeyoun The OP implied they were already using Prototype, so if that's the case it makes sense to take advantage of it.
• Drako: Why to me only works with $("field_name").text("new text");
• John Topley: @Drako Are you using PrototypeJS?
• John Topley: @Drako The original question and my answer from seven years ago are for PrototypeJS not jQuery.

Answer 5

$('field_name').innerHTML = 'Your text.';

One of the nifty features of Prototype is that $('field_name') does the same thing as document.getElementById('field_name'). Use it! :-)

John Topley's answer using Prototype's update function is another good solution.

• Milan Babuškov: That doesn't look like JavaScript?
• Tom: Don't use innerHTML. It's not a w3c recommendation and behaves inconsistently. It's considered bad style.
• Milan Babuškov: Tom, what should be used instead (if you don't use Prototype)?
• Joel Anair: Milan, the more accepted way is to loop through the childNodes, call removeNode(true) on each, then append new nodes created using document.createElement() or document.createTextNode(). If you need to do that I would recommend writing a function to avoid a lot of typing.
• ceejayoz: @RaduSimionescu No, it isn't. This question and answer is about Prototype.js, not jQuery. In Prototype $ looks up an item by ID. It's not selector-based like jQuery is. api.prototypejs.org/dom/dollar

Answer 6

The quick answer is to use innerHTML (or prototype's update method which pretty much the same thing). The problem with innerHTML is you need to escape the content being assigned. Depending on your targets you will need to do that with other code OR

in IE:-

document.getElementById("field_name").innerText = newText;

in FF:-

document.getElementById("field_name").textContent = newText;

(Actually of FF have the following present in by code)

HTMLElement.prototype.__defineGetter__("innerText", function () { return this.textContent; })
HTMLElement.prototype.__defineSetter__("innerText", function (inputText) { this.textContent = inputText; })

Now I can just use innerText if you need widest possible browser support then this is not a complete solution but neither is using innerHTML in the raw.

Answer 7

If you really want us to just continue where you left off, you could do:

if (fieldNameElement)
 fieldNameElement.innerHTML = 'some HTML';

Answer 8

nodeValue is also a standard DOM property you can use:

function showPanel(fieldName) {
 var fieldNameElement = document.getElementById(field_name);
 if(fieldNameElement.firstChild)
 fieldNameElement.firstChild.nodeValue = "New Text";
}

Answer 9

el.innerHTML='';
el.appendChild(document.createTextNode("yo"));

Answer 10

If you're inclined to start using a lot of JavaScript on your site, jQuery makes playing with the DOM extremely simple.

http://docs.jquery.com/Manipulation

Makes it as simple as: $("#field-name").text("Some new text.");

• ceejayoz: Prototype has similar utility functions.

Answer 11

Use innerText if you can't assume structure - Use Text#data to update existing text Performance Test

Answer 12

function showPanel(fieldName) {
 var fieldNameElement = document.getElementById(field_name);
 fieldNameElement.removeChild(fieldNameElement.firstChild);
 var newText = document.createTextNode("New Text");
 fieldNameElement.appendChild(newText);
}

• Quentin: Better to replace the node then to remove it and add a new one as two separate operations.

Answer 13

Here's an easy jQuery way:

var el = $('#yourid .yourclass');
el.html(el.html().replace(/Old Text/ig, "New Text"));

• James Westgate: This seems like a bad idea - what if your element contained subnodes with the same text, or your text matched part of an element tag name? WHy not just use .text?
• TGarrett: I completely agree with James Westgate, should not do that.