.replaceAll()

Categories: Manipulation > DOM Replacement

.replaceAll( target )Returns: jQuery

Description: Replace each target element with the set of matched elements.

The .replaceAll() method is similar to .replaceWith(), but with the source and target reversed. Consider this DOM structure:

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<div class="container">
  <div class="inner first">Hello</div>
  <div class="inner second">And</div>
  <div class="inner third">Goodbye</div>
</div>

We can create an element, then replace other elements with it:

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$( "<h2>New heading</h2>" ).replaceAll( ".inner" );

This causes all of them to be replaced:

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<div class="container">
  <h2>New heading</h2>
  <h2>New heading</h2>
  <h2>New heading</h2>
</div>

Or, we could select an element to use as the replacement:

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$( ".first" ).replaceAll( ".third" );

This results in the DOM structure:

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<div class="container">
  <div class="inner second">And</div>
  <div class="inner first">Hello</div>
</div>

From this example, we can see that the selected element replaces the target by being moved from its old location, not by being cloned.

Additional Notes:

  • The .replaceAll() method removes all data and event handlers associated with the removed nodes.

Example:

Replace all the paragraphs with bold words.

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<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <title>replaceAll demo</title>
  <script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.7.1.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
 
<p>Hello</p>
<p>cruel</p>
<p>World</p>
 
<script>
$( "<b>Paragraph. </b>" ).replaceAll( "p" );
</script>
 
</body>
</html>

Demo: