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Having trouble with a function hitting the page as soon as possible, so i need to write it in pure javascript and include it in the head. not sure how to go about it, because as i understand it, by using .replace() the new element will be moved to a different location on the page. jQuery's replaceWith() behavior is ideal.

$("#imagefiles").replaceWith("<input type='file' name='imagefiles' id='imagefiles' />");
technopeasant
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    What is the problem with using jQuery again? – Ilia G Apr 15 '12 at 19:27
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    `.replace()` is for strings. Please don't use it for DOM. Could you describe your issue a little better? Are you saying you want an element to be replaced as soon as it appears, and not wait for the rest of the DOM to be ready? –  Apr 15 '12 at 19:28

3 Answers3

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var image = document.getElementById('imagefiles'), parent = image.parentNode,
tempDiv = document.createElement('div');

tempDiv.innerHTML = "<input type='file' name='imagefiles' id='imagefiles' />"

var input = tempDiv.childNodes[0];

parent.replaceChild(input, image);

DEMO

EDIT as per am not i am:

var image = document.getElementById('imagefiles'), parent = image.parentNode,
input = document.createElement('input');
input.id = input.name = "imagefiles";
input.type = 'file';

parent.replaceChild(input, image);

edited DEMO

qwertymk
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  • Why the `div`? It'll be faster and less code to just create the `input` directly. `input = document.createElement('input'); input.type = "file"; input.id = input.name = "imagefiles";` –  Apr 15 '12 at 19:32
  • @qwertymk it works in jsFiddle, but my webinspector is showing an error on the final line: "Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token ILLEGAL" – technopeasant Apr 15 '12 at 19:42
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    @technopeasant: dude, you gotta vote more to get people to answer you, 11 votes all time when you asked 128 questions? – qwertymk Apr 15 '12 at 19:58
  • @technopeasant: You can pick up some invisible and illegal characters if you copy/paste from jsFiddle. Better to copy the code from here instead. –  Apr 15 '12 at 20:47
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  const node = new DOMParser().parseFromString(html, 'text/html').body.childNodes[0];
  document.getElementById(id).replaceWith(node);
Diego Carrion
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let element = document.getElementById("imagefiles");
element.insertAdjacentHTML("afterend","<input type='file' name='imagefiles' id='imagefiles' />");
element.parentNode.removeChild(element);

Years later. There is now an childNode.replaceWith() but it is not strictly equivalent to the JQuery replaceWith(); Nor is it compatible with I.E.

The above code creates a document fragment from the given HTML, and inserts it after the original element in the DOM and then deletes the original element, effectively replacing it.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/ChildNode/replaceWith

gatecrasher
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