What is the best way to retrieve the complete definition of an HTML tag using Jquery?

When using JQuery, we can retrieve the tag name by utilizing:

     $(someCssSelector).prop('tagName');

This function will return the tag name itself, such as 'DIV', 'TABLE'

Is there a way to obtain the complete tag definition along with all attributes without having to manually extract each attribute's value? I require the entire definition in text form. For instance:

<div id="myDiv" style="...." title="....">....</div>

If provided with the CSS selector for any element, my goal is to receive the following as a string:

<div id="myDiv" style="...."  title="....">

The sequence of attributes in the output string does not need to be in any specific order.

jqueryhtmlcss

Answer №1

To identify the element's HTML tag, one approach is to examine the outerHTML property and locate the opening and closing angle brackets:

const openingHtmlTag = $('#myDiv')[0]
  .outerHTML
  .match(/<[^>]+>/)[0];
console.log(openingHtmlTag);
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.3.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

<div id="myDiv" style="color:green" title="foobar">content<div>

In more complex scenarios where an attribute can contain special characters like > or escaped quotes, the regular expression pattern needs to be adjusted accordingly:

const re = /^<(?:[^'">]*|(['"])(?:\\.|(?!\1).)*\1)+>/s;
const openingHtmlTag = $('#myDiv')[0]
  .outerHTML
  .match(re)[0];
console.log(openingHtmlTag);
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.3.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

<div id="myDiv" style="color:green" title="foobar">content<div>

https://regex101.com/r/OBNoBa/1

The pattern 

^<(?:[^'">]*|(['"])(?:\\.|(?!\1).)*\1)+>
breaks down as follows:

  • ^< - Denotes the start of the string followed by a left angle bracket (indicating the beginning of an HTML tag)
  • (?:[^\'">]*|([\'"])(?:\\.|(?!\\1).)*\\1)+
    - Matches one or more instances of:
    • [^\'">]* - Any character except single/double quotes or a closing bracket, OR:
    • ([\'"])(?:\\.|(?!\\1).)*\\1 - Represents a quoted attribute value:
    • ([\'"]) - Captures the opening quote delimiter. Then matches either:
      • \\. - Any escaped character (allows matching of sequences like \', distinguishing from the ending delimiters), OR
      • (?!\\1). - Any character not equal to the opening delimiter
    • \\1 - Indicates the closing quote delimiter for the attribute value
  • > - Marks the end of the opening HTML tag

Another method involves cloning the node without its children, extracting the outerHTML, and removing the closing tag for easier identification:

const re = /^<(?:[^\'">]*|([\'"])(?:\\.|(?!\\1).)*\\1)+>/s;
const cloned = $('#myDiv')[0].cloneNode(false);
const html = cloned.outerHTML.replace(/<\\s*\\/\\w+\\s*>$/, '');
console.log(html);
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.3.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

<div id="myDiv" style="color:green" title="foobar">content<div>

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