I am trying to create a new list and add it to the DOM, and then add list items to new list along with text node to each list item. This is what I have so far, after trying several ways to do this, but still not acplishing goal. any help is appreciated.The first 4 lines of code is HTML snippet, the code below that is the JavaScript code. Again thank you for any help with this.
<body>
<div id="nav"></div>
<script src="js/script.js"></script>
</body>
var newList = document.createElement("ul");
var newListItem = document.createElement("li");
var stringArray = ["Home","About","Our Services","Contact Us"];
var newUL = document.getElementById("nav").appendChild(newList);
function buildList(){
for( var i = 0; i < stringArray.length; i++){
newUL.appendChild(newListItem);
}
var listItems = document.getElementsByTagName("li");
for( var i = 0; i < listItems.length; i++){
listItems[i].appendChild(stringArray[i]);
}
}
buildList();
I am trying to create a new list and add it to the DOM, and then add list items to new list along with text node to each list item. This is what I have so far, after trying several ways to do this, but still not acplishing goal. any help is appreciated.The first 4 lines of code is HTML snippet, the code below that is the JavaScript code. Again thank you for any help with this.
<body>
<div id="nav"></div>
<script src="js/script.js"></script>
</body>
var newList = document.createElement("ul");
var newListItem = document.createElement("li");
var stringArray = ["Home","About","Our Services","Contact Us"];
var newUL = document.getElementById("nav").appendChild(newList);
function buildList(){
for( var i = 0; i < stringArray.length; i++){
newUL.appendChild(newListItem);
}
var listItems = document.getElementsByTagName("li");
for( var i = 0; i < listItems.length; i++){
listItems[i].appendChild(stringArray[i]);
}
}
buildList();
4 Answers
Reset to default 3Two problems:
- You're appending the same
liover and over. You need to create a new one for each item. - You can't append a string to a DOM element, but you can set its
textContent:
var stringArray = ["Home","About","Our Services","Contact Us"];
function buildList(){
var newList = document.createElement("ul");
var newListItem;
document.getElementById("nav").appendChild(newList);
for( var i = 0; i < stringArray.length; i++){
newListItem = document.createElement('li');
newListItem.textContent = stringArray[i];
newList.appendChild(newListItem);
}
}
buildList();<div id="nav"></div>Slightly cleaner version with .forEach():
var stringArray = ["Home","About","Our Services","Contact Us"];
function buildList(){
var newList = document.createElement("ul");
document.getElementById("nav").appendChild(newList);
stringArray.forEach(function (title) {
var newListItem = document.createElement('li');
newListItem.textContent = title;
newList.appendChild(newListItem);
});
}
buildList();<div id="nav"></div>You need to create a text node and append it to the <li> element.
var newList = document.createElement("ul");
var stringArray = ["Home","About","Our Services","Contact Us"];
// Create a <ul> element
var newUL = document.getElementById("nav").appendChild(newList);
function buildList(){
for(var i = 0; i < stringArray.length; i++){
// Create a text node
var newTextNode = document.createTextNode(stringArray[i]);
// Create a list element
var newListItem = document.createElement("li");
// Append text node and list item
newListItem.appendChild(newTextNode);
newUL.appendChild(newListItem);
}
}
buildList(); <body>
<div id="nav"></div>
</body>Just loop over the string array and add lis, like this:
var nav = document.querySelector("nav");
var list = document.createElement("ul");
var items = ["Home","About","Our Services","Contact Us"];
items.forEach(function(item) {
var li = document.createElement("li");
li.innerText = item;
list.appendChild(li);
})
nav.appendChild(list);
Codepen example here
If it's supposed to be a site navigation, you may want to add links. That's easy, too – just append <a> in the loop like this:
var nav = document.querySelector("nav");
var list = document.createElement("ul");
var items = [{
text: "Home",
url: "/home"
}, {
text: "About",
url: "/about"
}, {
text: "Our services",
url: "/services"
}, {
text: "Contact Us",
url: "/contact"
}]
items.forEach(function(item) {
var li = document.createElement("li");
var link = document.createElement("a");
link.innerText = item.text;
link.href = item.url;
li.appendChild(link);
list.appendChild(li);
})
nav.appendChild(list);
Codepen example here
In this case, I would contend that using innerHTML and Array#join is simpler and more readable than other alternatives:
var stringArray = ["Home", "About", "Our Services", "Contact Us"];
function buildList() {
document.getElementById('nav').innerHTML = '<ul><li>' + stringArray.join('</li><li>') + '</li></ul>'
}
buildList()<nav id="nav"></nav>