[javascript] Is it possible to append to innerHTML without destroying descendants' event listeners?

In the following example code, I attach an onclick event handler to the span containing the text "foo". The handler is an anonymous function that pops up an alert().

However, if I assign to the parent node's innerHTML, this onclick event handler gets destroyed - clicking "foo" fails to pop up the alert box.

Is this fixable?

<html>
 <head>
 <script type="text/javascript">

  function start () {
    myspan = document.getElementById("myspan");
    myspan.onclick = function() { alert ("hi"); };

    mydiv = document.getElementById("mydiv");
    mydiv.innerHTML += "bar";
  }

 </script>
 </head>

 <body onload="start()">
   <div id="mydiv" style="border: solid red 2px">
     <span id="myspan">foo</span>
   </div>
 </body>

</html>

This question is related to javascript html innerhtml dom-events

The answer is


As a slight (but related) asside, if you use a javascript library such as jquery (v1.3) to do your dom manipulation you can make use of live events whereby you set up a handler like:

 $("#myspan").live("click", function(){
  alert('hi');
});

and it will be applied to that selector at all times during any kind of jquery manipulation. For live events see: docs.jquery.com/events/live for jquery manipulation see: docs.jquery.com/manipulation


I created my markup to insert as a string since it's less code and easier to read than working with the fancy dom stuff.

Then I made it innerHTML of a temporary element just so I could take the one and only child of that element and attach to the body.

var html = '<div>';
html += 'Hello div!';
html += '</div>';

var tempElement = document.createElement('div');
tempElement.innerHTML = html;
document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0].appendChild(tempElement.firstChild);

Yes it is possible if you bind events using tag attribute onclick="sayHi()" directly in template similar like your <body onload="start()"> - this approach similar to frameworks angular/vue/react/etc. You can also use <template> to operate on 'dynamic' html like here. It is not strict unobtrusive js however it is acceptable for small projects

_x000D_
_x000D_
function start() {_x000D_
  mydiv.innerHTML += "bar";_x000D_
}_x000D_
_x000D_
function sayHi() {_x000D_
  alert("hi");_x000D_
}
_x000D_
<body onload="start()">_x000D_
  <div id="mydiv" style="border: solid red 2px">_x000D_
    <span id="myspan" onclick="sayHi()">foo</span>_x000D_
  </div>_x000D_
</body>
_x000D_
_x000D_
_x000D_


Using .insertAdjacentHTML() preserves event listeners, and is supported by all major browsers. It's a simple one-line replacement for .innerHTML.

var html_to_insert = "<p>New paragraph</p>";

// with .innerHTML, destroys event listeners
document.getElementById('mydiv').innerHTML += html_to_insert;

// with .insertAdjacentHTML, preserves event listeners
document.getElementById('mydiv').insertAdjacentHTML('beforeend', html_to_insert);

The 'beforeend' argument specifies where in the element to insert the HTML content. Options are 'beforebegin', 'afterbegin', 'beforeend', and 'afterend'. Their corresponding locations are:

<!-- beforebegin -->
<div id="mydiv">
  <!-- afterbegin -->
  <p>Existing content in #mydiv</p>
  <!-- beforeend -->
</div>
<!-- afterend -->

I'm a lazy programmer. I don't use DOM because it seems like extra typing. To me, the less code the better. Here's how I would add "bar" without replacing "foo":

function start(){
var innermyspan = document.getElementById("myspan").innerHTML;
document.getElementById("myspan").innerHTML=innermyspan+"bar";
}

You could do it like this:

var anchors = document.getElementsByTagName('a'); 
var index_a = 0;
var uls = document.getElementsByTagName('UL'); 
window.onload=function()          {alert(anchors.length);};
for(var i=0 ; i<uls.length;  i++)
{
    lis = uls[i].getElementsByTagName('LI');
    for(var j=0 ;j<lis.length;j++)
    {
        var first = lis[j].innerHTML; 
        string = "<img src=\"http://g.etfv.co/" +  anchors[index_a++] + 
            "\"  width=\"32\" 
        height=\"32\" />   " + first;
        lis[j].innerHTML = string;
    }
}

There is another alternative: using setAttribute rather than adding an event listener. Like this:

_x000D_
_x000D_
<!DOCTYPE html>_x000D_
<html>_x000D_
<head>_x000D_
    <meta charset="utf-8">_x000D_
    <title>Demo innerHTML and event listeners</title>_x000D_
<style>_x000D_
    div {_x000D_
        border: 1px solid black;_x000D_
        padding: 10px;_x000D_
    }_x000D_
</style>_x000D_
</head>_x000D_
<body>_x000D_
    <div>_x000D_
        <span>Click here.</span>_x000D_
    </div>_x000D_
    <script>_x000D_
        document.querySelector('span').setAttribute("onclick","alert('Hi.')");_x000D_
        document.querySelector('div').innerHTML += ' Added text.';_x000D_
    </script>_x000D_
</body>_x000D_
</html>
_x000D_
_x000D_
_x000D_


Now, it is 2012, and jQuery has append and prepend functions that do exactly this, add content without effecting current content. Very useful.


For any object array with header and data.jsfiddle

https://jsfiddle.net/AmrendraKumar/9ac75Lg0/2/

<table id="myTable" border='1|1'></table>

<script>
  const userObjectArray = [{
    name: "Ajay",
    age: 27,
    height: 5.10,
    address: "Bangalore"
  }, {
    name: "Vijay",
    age: 24,
    height: 5.10,
    address: "Bangalore"
  }, {
    name: "Dinesh",
    age: 27,
    height: 5.10,
    address: "Bangalore"
  }];
  const headers = Object.keys(userObjectArray[0]);
  var tr1 = document.createElement('tr');
  var htmlHeaderStr = '';
  for (let i = 0; i < headers.length; i++) {
    htmlHeaderStr += "<th>" + headers[i] + "</th>"
  }
  tr1.innerHTML = htmlHeaderStr;
  document.getElementById('myTable').appendChild(tr1);

  for (var j = 0; j < userObjectArray.length; j++) {
    var tr = document.createElement('tr');
    var htmlDataString = '';
    for (var k = 0; k < headers.length; k++) {
      htmlDataString += "<td>" + userObjectArray[j][headers[k]] + "</td>"
    }
    tr.innerHTML = htmlDataString;
    document.getElementById('myTable').appendChild(tr);
  }

</script>

something.innerHTML += 'add whatever you want';

it worked for me. I added a button to an input text using this solution


Losing event handlers is, IMO, a bug in the way Javascript handles the DOM. To avoid this behavior, you can add the following:

function start () {
  myspan = document.getElementById("myspan");
  myspan.onclick = function() { alert ("hi"); };

  mydiv = document.getElementById("mydiv");
  clickHandler = mydiv.onclick;  // add
  mydiv.innerHTML += "bar";
  mydiv.onclick = clickHandler;  // add
}

The easiest way is to use an array and push elements into it and then insert the array subsequent values into the array dynamically. Here is my code:

var namesArray = [];

function myclick(){
    var readhere = prompt ("Insert value");
    namesArray.push(readhere);
    document.getElementById('demo').innerHTML= namesArray;
}

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