jQuery, get html of a whole element

Question

I wish to get the entire html of a selected element not just it's contents. .html() uses javascripts innerHTML() method according to the documentation. HTML:

<div id="divs">
  <div id="div1">
    <p>Some Content</p>
  </div>
  <div id="div2">
    <p>Some Content</p>
  </div>
</div>

Using $('#divs:first').html(); will return just the paragraph element. I want to get the html for the whole element, like so:

  <div id="div1">
    <p>Some Content</p>
  </div>

I can't use .parent because this will return html of both child divs.

Nick Craver · Accepted Answer · 2014-08-26T03:34:15.090

222

You can clone it to get the entire contents, like this:

var html = $("<div />").append($("#div1").clone()).html();

Or make it a plugin, most tend to call this "outerHTML", like this:

jQuery.fn.outerHTML = function() {
  return jQuery('<div />').append(this.eq(0).clone()).html();
};

Then you can just call:

var html = $("#div1").outerHTML();

edited Aug 26 '14 at 03:34

answered Sep 01 '10 at 00:28

Nick Craver

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8

This is a great answer, but it really sucks that jQuery doesn't implement its own method. – Philip Walton Apr 05 '11 at 07:51
6

It is not perfect. In case HTML has a `script` tag the code from this tag will run when `append` is called. It might cause problems. – Andrej Feb 13 '14 at 16:17

score 135 · Answer 2 · edited Aug 03 '17 at 08:03

135

Differences might not be meaningful in a typical use case, but using the standard DOM functionality

$("#el")[0].outerHTML

is about twice as fast as

$("<div />").append($("#el").clone()).html();

so I would go with:

/* 
 * Return outerHTML for the first element in a jQuery object,
 * or an empty string if the jQuery object is empty;  
 */
jQuery.fn.outerHTML = function() {
   return (this[0]) ? this[0].outerHTML : '';  
};

edited Aug 03 '17 at 08:03

zb226

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answered Aug 08 '13 at 01:29

Pasi Jokinen

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And if you just want the opening tag: `/<[^>]+>/.exec(elem[0].outerHTML)[0]` – z0r Nov 19 '14 at 02:23
1

I also like the defaulting to empty string instead of allowing null reference errors, nice and short and sweet and stable, thank you. This works great for me. – OG Sean Feb 20 '18 at 22:15
Upvoting for standard DOM functionality, and twice as fast :) – saricden Jun 29 '18 at 10:59

score 38 · Answer 3 · edited Sep 06 '19 at 12:17

38

You can achieve that with just one line code that simplify that:

$('#divs').get(0).outerHTML;

As simple as that.

edited Sep 06 '19 at 12:17

Juan Antonio

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answered Feb 26 '17 at 13:59

Shakti Shakya

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Because I'm in the situation with puppeteer, where jquery plugin is not very convenient, however this one line style is exactly suitable for puppeteer/phantomjs-like scrapping script. – 千木郷 Oct 26 '18 at 06:52

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 04 '14 at 13:47

You can easily get child itself and all of its decedents (children) with Jquery's Clone() method, just

var child = $('#div div:nth-child(1)').clone();  

var child2 = $('#div div:nth-child(2)').clone();

You will get this for first query as asked in question

<div id="div1">
     <p>Some Content</p>
</div>

jQuery, get html of a whole element

4 Answers4

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