How do I add a class to a given element?

Question

I have an element that already has a class:

Answer 1

I know IE9 is shutdown officially and we can achieve it with element.classList as many told above but I just tried to learn how it works without classList with help of many answers above I could learn it.

Below code extends many answers above and improves them by avoiding adding duplicate classes.

function addClass(element,className){
  var classArray = className.split(' ');
  classArray.forEach(function (className) {
    if(!hasClass(element,className)){
      element.className += " "+className;
    }
  });            
}
//this will add 5 only once
addClass(document.querySelector('#getbyid'),'3 4 5 5 5');