The Node.appendChild()
method adds a node to the end of the list of children of a specified parent node. If the given child is a reference to an existing node in the document, appendChild()
moves it from its current position to the new position (there is no requirement to remove the node from its parent node before appending it to some other node).
This means that a node can't be in two points of the document simultaneously. So if the node already has a parent, the node is first removed, then appended at the new position. The Node.cloneNode()
method can be used to make a copy of the node before appending it under the new parent. Note that the copies made with cloneNode
will not be automatically kept in sync.
If the given child is a DocumentFragment
, the entire contents of the DocumentFragment
are moved into the child list of the specified parent node.
Newer API avaliable!
The ParentNode.append()
method supports multiple arguments and appending strings.
Syntax
element.appendChild(aChild)
Parameters
aChild
- The node to append to the given parent node (commonly an element).
Return value
The returned value is the appended child (aChild
), except when aChild
is a DocumentFragment
, in which case the empty DocumentFragment
is returned.
Notes
Chaining may not work as expected, due to appendChild()
returning the child element:
let aBlock = document.createElement('block').appendChild( document.createElement('b') );
Sets aBlock
to <b></b>
only, which is probably not what you want.
Example
// Create a new paragraph element, and append it to the end of the document body let p = document.createElement("p"); document.body.appendChild(p);
Specifications
Specification | Status | Comment |
---|---|---|
DOM The definition of 'Node.appendChild()' in that specification. |
Living Standard | No change from Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Specification. |
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Specification The definition of 'Node.appendChild()' in that specification. |
Obsolete | No change from Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 Core Specification. |
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 Core Specification The definition of 'Node.appendChild()' in that specification. |
Obsolete | No change from Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 Specification. |
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 Specification The definition of 'Node.appendChild()' in that specification. |
Obsolete | Initial definition. |
Browser compatibility
Desktop | Mobile | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
appendChild | Chrome Full support 1 | Edge Full support 12 | Firefox Full support 1 | IE Full support 5 | Opera Full support 7 | Safari Full support 1.1 | WebView Android Full support 1 | Chrome Android Full support 18 | Firefox Android Full support 4 | Opera Android Full support 10.1 | Safari iOS Full support 1 | Samsung Internet Android Full support 1.0 |
Legend
- Full support
- Full support