Change innerHTML of a php DOMElement [duplicate]

Answer 1

I needed to do this for a project recently and ended up with an extension to DOMElement: http://www.keyvan.net/2010/07/javascript-like-innerhtml-access-in-php/

Here's an example showing how it's used:

<?php
require_once 'JSLikeHTMLElement.php';
$doc = new DOMDocument();
$doc->registerNodeClass('DOMElement', 'JSLikeHTMLElement');
$doc->loadHTML('<div><p>Para 1</p><p>Para 2</p></div>');
$elem = $doc->getElementsByTagName('div')->item(0);

// print innerHTML
echo $elem->innerHTML; // prints '<p>Para 1</p><p>Para 2</p>'

// set innerHTML
$elem->innerHTML = '<a href="http://fivefilters.org">FF</a>';

// print document (with our changes)
echo $doc->saveXML();
?>

Answer 2

Another solution:

1) create new DOMDocumentFragment from the HTML string to be inserted; 2) remove old content of our element by deleting its child nodes; 3) append DOMDocumentFragment to our element.

function setInnerHTML($element, $html)
{
    $fragment = $element->ownerDocument->createDocumentFragment();
    $fragment->appendXML($html);
    while ($element->hasChildNodes())
        $element->removeChild($element->firstChild);
    $element->appendChild($fragment);
}

Alternatively, we can replace our element with its clean copy and then append DOMDocumentFragment to this clone.

function setInnerHTML($element, $html)
{
    $fragment = $element->ownerDocument->createDocumentFragment();
    $fragment->appendXML($html);
    $clone = $element->cloneNode(); // Get element copy without children
    $clone->appendChild($fragment);
    $element->parentNode->replaceChild($clone, $element);
}

Test:

$doc = new DOMDocument();
$doc->loadXML('<div><span style="color: green">Old HTML</span></div>');
$div = $doc->getElementsByTagName('div')->item(0);
echo $doc->saveHTML();

setInnerHTML($div, '<p style="color: red">New HTML</p>');
echo $doc->saveHTML();

// Output:
// <div><span style="color: green">Old HTML</span></div>
// <div><p style="color: red">New HTML</p></div>

Answer 3

I think the best thing you can do is come up with a function that will take the DOMElement that you want to change the InnerHTML of, copy it, and replace it.

In very rough PHP:

function replaceElement($el, $newInnerHTML) {
    $newElement = $myDomDocument->createElement($el->nodeName, $newInnerHTML);
    $el->parentNode->insertBefore($newElement, $el);
    $el->parentNode->removeChild($el);

    return $newElement;
}

This doesn't take into account attributes and nested structures, but I think this will get you on your way.

Answer 4

I ended up making this function using a few functions from other people on this page. I changed the one from Joanna Goch the way that Peter Brand says mostly, and also added some code from Guest and from other places.

This function does not use an extension, and does not use appendXML (which is very picky and breaks even if it sees one BR tag that is not closed) and seems to be working good.

function set_inner_html( $element, $content ) {
    $DOM_inner_HTML = new DOMDocument();
    $internal_errors = libxml_use_internal_errors( true );
    $DOM_inner_HTML->loadHTML( mb_convert_encoding( $content, 'HTML-ENTITIES', 'UTF-8' ) );
    libxml_use_internal_errors( $internal_errors );
    $content_node = $DOM_inner_HTML->getElementsByTagName('body')->item(0);
    $content_node = $element->ownerDocument->importNode( $content_node, true );
    while ( $element->hasChildNodes() ) {
        $element->removeChild( $element->firstChild );
    }
    $element->appendChild( $content_node );
}

Answer 5

It seems that appendXML doesn't work always - for example if you try to append XML with 3 levels. Here is the function I wrote that always work (you want to set $content as innerHTML to $element):

function setInnerHTML($DOM, $element, $content) {
    $DOMInnerHTML = new DOMDocument();
    $DOMInnerHTML->loadHTML($content);
    $contentNode = $DOMInnerHTML->getElementsByTagName('body')->item(0)->firstChild;
    $contentNode = $DOM->importNode($contentNode, true);
    $element->appendChild($contentNode);
    return $elementNode;
}

Answer 6

Have a look at this library PHP Simple HTML DOM Parser http://simplehtmldom.sourceforge.net/

It looks pretty straightforward. You can change innertextproperty of your elements. It might help.