javascript getElementById and convert it to String

Question

Hi, is there a way to convert a javascript HTML object to a string? i.e.

var someElement = document.getElementById("id");
var someElementToString = someElement.toString();

thanks a lot in advance

Answer 1

someElement.innerHTML

Answer 2

If you want a string representation of the entire tag then you can use outerHTML for browsers that support it:

var someElementToString = someElement.outerHTML;

For other browsers, apparently you can use XMLSerializer:

var someElement = document.getElementById("id");
var someElementToString;

if (someElement.outerHTML)
    someElementToString = someElement.outerHTML;
else if (XMLSerializer)
    someElementToString = new XMLSerializer().serializeToString(someElement); 

Answer 3

As Darin Dimitrov said you can use element.innerHTML to display the HTML element childnodes HTML. If you are under IE you can use the outerHTML propoerty that is the element plus its descendants nodes HTML

Answer 4

You can always wrap a clone of an element in an 'offscreen', empty container. The container's innerHTML is the 'outerHTML' of the clone- and the original. Pass true as a second parameter to get the element's descendents as well.

document.getHTML=function(who,deep){ 
 if(!who || !who.tagName) return '';
 var txt, el= document.createElement("div");
 el.appendChild(who.cloneNode(deep));
 txt= el.innerHTML;
 el= null;
 return txt;
}