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Element.outerHTML

The outerHTML attribute of the Element DOM interface gets the serialized HTML fragment describing the element including its descendants. It can also be set to replace the element with nodes parsed from the given string.

To only obtain the HTML representation of the contents of an element, or to replace the contents of an element, use the innerHTML property instead.

Value

Reading the value of outerHTML returns a DOMString containing an HTML serialization of the element and its descendants. Setting the value of outerHTML replaces the element and all of its descendants with a new DOM tree constructed by parsing the specified htmlString.

Exceptions

SyntaxError DOMException

Thrown if an attempt was made to set outerHTML using an HTML string which is not valid.

NoModificationAllowedError DOMException

Thrown if an attempt was made to set outerHTML on an element which is a direct child of a Document, such as Document.documentElement.

Examples

Getting the value of an element's outerHTML property:

HTML

<div id="d">
  <p>Content</p>
  <p>Further Elaborated</p>
</div>

Javascript

var d = document.getElementById("d");
console.log(d.outerHTML);

// The string '<div id="d"><p>Content</p><p>Further Elaborated</p></div>'
// is written to the console window

Replacing a node by setting the outerHTML property:

HTML

<div id="container">
  <div id="d">This is a div.</div>
</div>

Javascript

var container = document.getElementById("container");
var d = document.getElementById("d");

console.log(container.firstElementChild.nodeName); // logs "DIV"

d.outerHTML = "<p>This paragraph replaced the original div.</p>";

console.log(container.firstElementChild.nodeName); // logs "P"

// The #d div is no longer part of the document tree,
// the new paragraph replaced it.

Notes

If the element has no parent element, setting its outerHTML property will not change it or its descendants. Many browsers will also throw an exception. For example: 

var div = document.createElement("div");
div.outerHTML = "<div class=\"test\">test</div>";
console.log(div.outerHTML); // output: "<div></div>"

Also, while the element will be replaced in the document, the variable whose outerHTML property was set will still hold a reference to the original element: 

var p = document.getElementsByTagName("p")[0];
console.log(p.nodeName); // shows: "P"
p.outerHTML = "<div>This div replaced a paragraph.</div>";
console.log(p.nodeName); // still "P";

The returned value will contain HTML escaped attributes:

var anc = document.createElement("a");
anc.href = "https://developer.mozilla.org?a=b&c=d";
console.log(anc.outerHTML); // output: "<a href='https://developer.mozilla.org?a=b&amp;c=d'></a>"

Specifications

Specification
DOM Parsing and Serialization
# dom-element-outerhtml

Browser compatibility

Desktop Mobile
Chrome Edge Firefox Internet Explorer Opera Safari WebView Android Chrome Android Firefox for Android Opera Android Safari on IOS Samsung Internet
outerHTML
33
This API was previously available on the Node API.
12
11
4
8
9
4.4
This API was previously available on the Node API.
33
This API was previously available on the Node API.
14
10.1
9
2.0
This API was previously available on the Node API.

See also

© 2005–2021 MDN contributors.
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License v2.5 or later.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Element/outerHTML

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Last Updated 2022-04-27T09:33:08Z