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JavaScript Tutorial Series: Manipulating elements part 2.

In this post we're going to talk about four more methods that will help you manipulate the DOM.
There's a huge number of methods/properties that helps you manipulate the DOM. Not all of them are mentioned, but only the important or commonly used ones.

prepend

The prepend() method places a group of Node objects or DOMString objects before a parent node's first child.

<ul id="list">
  <li>first item</li>
  <li>second item</li>
  <li>third item</li>
</ul>
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HTML list

const list = document.getElementById("list");

const item = document.createElement("li");

item.textContent = "fourth item";

list.prepend(item);
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prepend method

As you can see, the element we created using JavaScript is placed before the first child of that list.

append

The append() method inserts a number of Node objects or DOMString objects after a parent node's final child,

<ul id="list">
  <li>first item</li>
  <li>second item</li>
  <li>third item</li>
</ul>
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HTML list

const list = document.getElementById("list");

const item = document.createElement("li");

item.textContent = "fourth item";

list.append(item);
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append method

replaceChild

The replaceChild() method is used to replace a parent node's child.

Syntax

parentNode.replaceChild(newChild, oldChild);

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Using the example above we're going to replace the first item of the list.

<ul id="list">
  <li>first item</li>
  <li>second item</li>
  <li>third item</li>
</ul>
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HTML list

const list = document.getElementById("list");

const item = document.createElement("li");

item.textContent = "new child item";

list.replaceChild(item, list.firstElementChild);
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replaceChild method

removeChild

The removeChild() method is used to remove a child element from a node.

Syntax

parentNode.removeChild(childNode);
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Using the same example, we're going to remove the first element in the unordered list.

<ul id="list">
  <li>first item</li>
  <li>second item</li>
  <li>third item</li>
</ul>
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HTML list

const list = document.getElementById("list");
list.removeChild(list.firstElementChild);
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removeChild method

Top comments (1)

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changintimes profile image
Larry

I enjoy these Javascript articles. Thanks.