element.insertAdjacentElement

The insertAdjacentElement() method inserts a given element node at a given position relative to the element it is invoked upon.

Syntax

targetElement.insertAdjacentElement(position, element);

Parameters

position

A DOMString representing the position relative to the targetElement; must match (case-insensitively) one of the following strings:

• 'beforebegin': Before the element itself.
• 'afterbegin': Just inside the element, before its first child.
• 'beforeend': Just inside the element, after its last child.
• 'afterend': After the element itself.

element

The element to be inserted into the tree.

Return value

The element that was inserted, or null, if the insertion failed.

Exceptions

Visualization of position names

<!-- beforebegin -->
<p>
<!-- afterbegin -->
foo
<!-- beforeend -->
</p>
<!-- afterend -->

Example

beforeBtn.addEventListener('click', function() {
  var tempDiv = document.createElement('div');
  tempDiv.style.backgroundColor = randomColor();
  if (activeElem) {
    activeElem.insertAdjacentElement('beforebegin',tempDiv);
  }
  setListener(tempDiv);
});

afterBtn.addEventListener('click', function() {
  var tempDiv = document.createElement('div');
  tempDiv.style.backgroundColor = randomColor();
  if (activeElem) {
    activeElem.insertAdjacentElement('afterend',tempDiv);
  }
  setListener(tempDiv);
});

Have a look at our insertAdjacentElement.html demo on Github (see the source code too.) Here we have a sequence of <div> elements inside a container. When one is clicked, it becomes selected and you can then press the Insert before and Insert after buttons to insert new divs before or after the selected element using insertAdjacentElement().

Specification

Browser compatibility

See also

• Element.insertAdjacentHTML()
• Element.insertAdjacentText()
• Node.insertBefore()
• Node.appendChild() (same effect as beforeend)