How to create an element from a string in JavaScript ?

In this article, we will learn how to create an element from a string using JavaScript. This can be used in situations where dynamically generated elements are required by the user. This can be achieved using two approaches as given below.

• Using the createElement() method
• Using the jQuery parseHTML() method

Approach 1: Using the createElement() method.

The createElement() method is used for creating elements within the DOM. It accepts two parameters, a tagName which is a string that defines the type of element to create, and an optional options object that can be used to modify how the element is created. Any element that is needed can be passed as a string in this function and this would return the specified element. This approach can only be used to create a single element from one string.

Example: In this example, we create a heading element by specifying the string as “h2”.

HTML

<h1 style="color:green">
    GeeksforGeeks
</h1>

<script>
    // Specify the string from which
    // the elements would be created
    var str = "h2";
    var str2 = "p";

    // Creating the elements
    var elem =
        document.createElement(str);
    var elem2 =
        document.createElement(str2);

    // Insert text in the element
    elem.innerText =
      "This is the new heading element";
    elem2.innerText =
      "This is the new paragraph element";

    // Add the element to the body
    document.body.appendChild(elem);
    document.body.appendChild(elem2);
</script>

Output:

Approach 2: Using the jQuery parseHTML() method.

The parseHTML() method of jQuery is used to parse an HTML string so that it can be used to create elements according to the given HTML. This approach can be used to create multiple elements from the string.

Example: In this example, the string is specified with multiple elements that are parsed to HTML and added to the body of the document.

HTML

<!-- Include jQuery -->
<script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.6.0.js">
</script>

<h1 style="color:green">
    GeeksforGeeks
</h1>
<script>
    // Define the HTML string to be parsed
    str = "<p>This <i>element</i> is created by" +
      " the <b>parseHTML()</b> " +
      "method in <i>jQuery</i></p>";

    // Parsing the string into HTML
    html = $.parseHTML(str);

    // Append the element in the document
    $('body').append(html);
</script>

Output: