Use jQuery selectors to target and replace elements in a string containing HTML [duplicate]

Question

I have a string that contains HTML, for example

var myString = "<div><p>testing</p></div>";

I need to target p and replace "testing" with something else, say "Hello World". I would normally use

$("p").innerHTML = "Hello World";

However, this is part of a string, not part of the DOM. How can I use jQuery's selector system to select from a string of HTML?

This does not look like it's a duplicate of that. He even stated he's not using jQuery. — Keavon
– Keavon, Commented Jul 21, 2014 at 22:15
Question 1: Do you have a DOM or are you doing something fancy out of a DOM? Question 2: Are you adverse to "hacky" solutions like having a place holder in the DOM and using that? — Jon P
– Jon P, Commented Jul 22, 2014 at 0:45
@JonP In my case I have a template that I pull as text into a variable with AJAX and I want to add content to a part of that template before putting it in the template's holder in the real DOM. I'd normally target it with jQuery, but it's still in a variable. I can add it to the DOM and then place content in it, but it will be more tricky to target the exact one and there might be a few milliseconds where there is no content. — Keavon
– Keavon, Commented Jul 22, 2014 at 1:22
The correct way to do this using jquery is var s = '<li>text</li>'; $.parseHTML(s).find("p").text("Hello World"). Not sure why this question is marked a duplicate of one that does not ask for the jquery method of doing this — smac89
– smac89, Commented Jan 6, 2017 at 4:31

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 10:30:37Z

1

You can turn any HTML into a parse-able jQuery object(s).

jQuery - selectors on a html string

$('p', myString).text()

edited May 23, 2017 at 10:30

CommunityBot

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answered Jul 21, 2014 at 21:00

Chris Fremgen

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1 Comment

Keavon Over a year ago

That allows me to retrieve the string but not edit it (as meni181818 mentioned in his answer). +1 as it is useful.

meni181818 · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-21 21:18:42Z

-1

note that you cant use:

$("p", myString).text( "Hello World" );

because is not 'Editable' DOM (isContentEditable: false)

answered Jul 21, 2014 at 21:18

meni181818

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1 Comment

Keavon Over a year ago

It looks like you were downvoted by someone else because that is more of a comment than an answer. I suggest deleting the answer and posting it as a comment.

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