update(element[, newContent]) -> HTMLElement

Replaces the content of element with the provided newContent argument and returns element.

newContent can be plain text, an HTML snippet, or any JavaScript object which has a toString() method.

If the new content contains any inline <script> tags (script tags containing the code directly, rather than referring to a separate file), update will extract them and evaluate them via String#evalScripts after updating the content. See String#evalScripts for details.

If no argument is provided, Element.update will simply clear element of its content.

Note that this method allows seamless content update of table related elements in Internet Explorer 6 and beyond.

Examples

<div id="fruits">carrot, eggplant and cucumber</div>

Passing a regular string:

$('fruits').update('kiwi, banana and apple');
// -> HTMLElement
$('fruits').innerHTML
// -> 'kiwi, banana and apple'

Clearing the element’s content:

$('fruits').update();
// -> HTMLElement
$('fruits').innerHTML;
// -> '' (an empty string)

And now inserting an HTML snippet:

$('fruits').update('<p>Kiwi, banana <em>and</em> apple.</p>');
// -> HTMLElement
$('fruits').innerHTML;
// -> '<p>Kiwi, banana <em>and</em> apple.</p>'

… with a <script> tag thrown in:

$('fruits').update('<p>Kiwi, banana <em>and</em> apple.</p><script>alert("updated!")</script>');
// -> HTMLElement (and prints "updated!" in an alert dialog).
$('fruits').innerHTML;
// -> '<p>Kiwi, banana <em>and</em> apple.</p>'

Relying on the toString() method:

$('fruits').update(123);
// -> HTMLElement
$('fruits').innerHTML;
// -> '123'

Finally, you can do some pretty funky stuff by defining your own toString() method on your custom objects:

var Fruit = Class.create();
Fruit.prototype = {
  initialize: function(fruit){
    this.fruit = fruit;
  },
  toString: function(){
    return 'I am a fruit and my name is "' + this.fruit + '".'; 
  }
}
var apple = new Fruit('apple');

$('fruits').update(apple);
$('fruits').innerHTML;
// -> 'I am a fruit and my name is "apple".'