How to return HTML or build HTML using JavaScript?

When building web applications, it is often necessary to dynamically generate HTML on the client side. This can be done using JavaScript, and there are different ways to do it. In this article, we'll show you how to return HTML or build HTML using JavaScript.

Returning HTML from a function

One way to dynamically generate HTML is to return an HTML string from a function. For example, let's say we have a function that generates list items -

function generateListItem(text) {
   return '
' + text + '
';
}

We can then use this function to generate HTML -

function generateListItem(text) {
   return '
' + text + '
';
}

var list = '
';
list += generateListItem('Item 1');
list += generateListItem('Item 2');
list += generateListItem('Item 3');
list += '
';

console.log(list)

The list variable now contains the following HTML -

   
Item 1
   
Item 2
   
Item 3

Building HTML using DOM methods

Another way to dynamically generate HTML is to use the DOM method to build the HTML structure. This can be done by creating elements and then adding them to the DOM. For example, let's say we want to create a list containing the same items as before -

var list = document.createElement('ul');

var item1 = document.createElement('li');
item1.innerText = 'Item 1';
list.appendChild(item1);

var item2 = document.createElement('li');
item2.innerText = 'Item 2';
list.appendChild(item2);

var item3 = document.createElement('li');
item3.innerText = 'Item 3';
list.appendChild(item3);

The list variable now contains the following HTML -

   
Item 1
   
Item 2
   
Item 3

Example

In the example below, We use different DOM methods to build the HTML list.

   
 Building HML using DOM methods
   

      
 We create a list by generating HTML elements
      
Tutorials List
   
   


   

In the above program, we use the createElement method to create unordered lists and list items. The appendChild method is used to add list items to the list.

Building HTML using innerHTML

Another way to build HTML is to use the innerHTML attribute. This can be done by creating an element and then setting its innerHTML property to an HTML string. For example, let's say we want to create a list containing the same items as before -

var list = document.createElement('ul');
list.innerHTML = '
Item 1
Item 2
Item 3
';

The list variable now contains the following HTML -

   
Item 1
   
Item 2
   
Item 3

Example

In the example below, We build an HTML list by assigning the list to innerHTML.

   
 List 
   

In the above program, we use the createElement method to create a list. Use innerHTML to add list items to a list. To display the list, we append the element with id = "result" using the appendChild method.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we showed how to return HTML or build HTML using JavaScript. There are different ways to do this, and the method you choose depends on your needs.

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