In this blog post, we will learn how to replace text in an HTML element using jQuery. Replacing text using jQuery can be useful when you need to update the content of a web page dynamically without reloading it. We will go through the various methods available in jQuery to replace text and also see some examples to understand how it works.
Using the .text() Method
The most straightforward method to replace text in an element is by using the .text()
method. This method sets the text content of the selected element(s) and removes any HTML tags in doing so.
Here’s the syntax for using the .text()
method:
$(selector).text(newText);
Where selector
is the jQuery selector to target the desired element(s) and newText
is the new text you want to set as the content of the selected element(s).
Example
Consider the following HTML code:
<div id="content"> <p>This is some sample text.</p> </div>
If you want to replace the text inside the <p> element, you can use the following jQuery code:
$("#content p").text("This is the new text.");
The resulting HTML will be:
<div id="content"> <p>This is the new text.</p> </div>
Using the .html() Method
If you want to replace the text in an element and include HTML tags, you can use the .html()
method. This method sets the HTML content of the selected element(s).
Here’s the syntax for using the .html()
method:
$(selector).html(newHTML);
Where selector
is the jQuery selector to target the desired element(s) and newHTML
is the new HTML content you want to set as the content of the selected element(s).
Example
Consider the following HTML code:
<div id="content"> <p>This is some sample text.</p> </div>
If you want to replace the text inside the <p> element with some new text and an HTML tag, you can use the following jQuery code:
$("#content p").html("This is the <strong>new</strong> text.");
The resulting HTML will be:
<div id="content"> <p>This is the <strong>new</strong> text.</p> </div>
Using the .replaceWith() Method
Another method to replace text in an element is by using the .replaceWith()
method. This method replaces the selected element(s) with new content. It can be useful when you want to replace the entire element, not just its text content.
Here’s the syntax for using the .replaceWith()
method:
$(selector).replaceWith(newContent);
Where selector
is the jQuery selector to target the desired element(s) and newContent
is the new content you want to replace the selected element(s) with.
Example
Consider the following HTML code:
<div id="content"> <p>This is some sample text.</p> </div>
If you want to replace the <p> element with a new <h2> element, you can use the following jQuery code:
$("#content p").replaceWith("<h2>This is the new text.</h2>");
The resulting HTML will be:
<div id="content"> <h2>This is the new text.</h2> </div>
Conclusion
In this blog post, we learned how to replace text in an HTML element using the .text()
, .html()
, and .replaceWith()
methods in jQuery. These methods can be handy when you need to update the content of a web page dynamically without reloading it. Now you can go ahead and use these methods in your projects to replace text easily and efficiently.