How can I remove a child node in HTML using JavaScript?
JavascriptHtmlDomJavascript Problem Overview
Is there a function like document.getElementById("FirstDiv").clear()
?
Javascript Solutions
Solution 1 - Javascript
To answer the original question - there are various ways to do this, but the following would be the simplest.
If you already have a handle to the child node that you want to remove, i.e. you have a JavaScript variable that holds a reference to it:
myChildNode.parentNode.removeChild(myChildNode);
Obviously, if you are not using one of the numerous libraries that already do this, you would want to create a function to abstract this out:
function removeElement(node) {
node.parentNode.removeChild(node);
}
EDIT: As has been mentioned by others: if you have any event handlers wired up to the node you are removing, you will want to make sure you disconnect those before the last reference to the node being removed goes out of scope, lest poor implementations of the JavaScript interpreter leak memory.
Solution 2 - Javascript
If you want to clear the div and remove all child nodes, you could put:
var mydiv = document.getElementById('FirstDiv');
while(mydiv.firstChild) {
mydiv.removeChild(mydiv.firstChild);
}
Solution 3 - Javascript
child.remove()
Modern Solution - For your use case:
document.getElementById("FirstDiv").remove()
This is recommended by W3C since late 2015, and is vanilla JS. All major browsers support it.
Supported Browsers - 96% May 2020
Solution 4 - Javascript
You have to remove any event handlers you've set on the node before you remove it, to avoid memory leaks in IE
Solution 5 - Javascript
A jQuery solution
HTML
<select id="foo">
<option value="1">1</option>
<option value="2">2</option>
<option value="3">3</option>
</select>
Javascript
// remove child "option" element with a "value" attribute equal to "2"
$("#foo > option[value='2']").remove();
// remove all child "option" elements
$("#foo > option").remove();
References:
http://api.jquery.com/attribute-equals-selector/" title="Attribute Equals Selector [name=value]">Attribute Equals Selector [name=value]
> Selects elements that have the > specified attribute with a value > exactly equal to a certain value.
Child Selector (“parent > child”)
> Selects all direct child elements > specified by "child" of elements > specified by "parent"
> Similar to .empty(), the .remove() > method takes elements out of the DOM. > We use .remove() when we want to > remove the element itself, as well as > everything inside it. In addition to > the elements themselves, all bound > events and jQuery data associated with > the elements are removed.
Solution 6 - Javascript
Use the following code:
//for Internet Explorer
document.getElementById("FirstDiv").removeNode(true);
//for other browsers
var fDiv = document.getElementById("FirstDiv");
fDiv.removeChild(fDiv.childNodes[0]); //first check on which node your required node exists, if it is on [0] use this, otherwise use where it exists.
Solution 7 - Javascript
var p=document.getElementById('childId').parentNode;
var c=document.getElementById('childId');
p.removeChild(c);
alert('Deleted');
p is parent node and c is child node
parentNode is a JavaScript variable which contains parent reference
Easy to understand
Solution 8 - Javascript
You should be able to use the .RemoveNode method of the node or the .RemoveChild method of the parent node.
Solution 9 - Javascript
You should probably use a JavaScript library to do things like this.
For example, MochiKit has a function removeElement, and jQuery has remove.