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JavaScript

Posted by davidreyes2
davidreyes2
3,422 Points

.append .text and .attr

Can someone in the simplest form explain to me what .append, .text and .attr actually do, are, how they work? Examples would be nice also.

Thanks in advanced!!

1 Answer

Jonathan Cousins
Jonathan Cousins
4,160 Points

Using the following HTML, I will try and help explain the jQuery functions.

<ul id="myList">
  <li data-myAttr="thing">Officia, magni.</li>
  <li>Ex, dolorum?</li>
  <li>Cumque, dolorem?</li>
  <li data-myAttr="something">Officiis, laboriosam.</li>
</ul>

Attr

The .attr() method gets the attribute value for only the first element in the matched set.

$('#myList li:first-child').attr('data-myAttr');

For instance, using the above will return 'thing', as this is the first list item and it has an attribute called data-myAttr. If the first match item doesn't have the desired attribute, it will return undefined.

Text

The .text() gets the combined text contents of each element in the set of matched elements, including their descendants, or set the text contents of the matched elements.

$('#myList').text();
$('#myLIst li:first-child').text();

For instance, using the above will return "Officia, magni. Ex, dolorum? Cumque, dolorem? Officiis, laboriosam." and "Officia, magni.".

Append

The .append() method inserts the specified content as the last child of each element in the jQuery collection.

$('#myList').append('<li>I am now last</li>');

For instance, using the above will insert the a list item with the text 'I am now last' after the last list item inside #myList.

davidreyes2
davidreyes2
3,422 Points

I did, but it's confusing on the wording that they used.

Thanks for the response!

Jonathan Cousins
Jonathan Cousins
4,160 Points

davidreyes2 I have updated my answer. Please take a look.

davidreyes2
davidreyes2
3,422 Points

Thanks! This is actually helping me understand it better!

I don't quite understand this answer though....

"For instance, using the above will return 'thing', as this is the first list item and it has an attribute called data-myAttr. If the first match item doesn't have the desired attribute, it will return undefined."

Does it return the word "thing" or the words "Officia, magni." from it?

Jonathan Cousins
Jonathan Cousins
4,160 Points

.attr() will only return a string of the value of the attribute you've selected.

For instance, $('#myList').attr('id') will return the value #myList.

So if the element you select is a list of items, only the first item will be checked for the chosen attribute.

davidreyes2
davidreyes2
3,422 Points

For instance "Officia, magni."??

Jonathan Cousins
Jonathan Cousins
4,160 Points

Only .text() returns the text inside an element. .attr() only returns the value of a given attribute.

    $('[data-myAttr=thing>').text()

will return Officia, magni.

    $('[data-myAttr=thing>').attr()

will return thing