How do you convert a jQuery object into a string?

Question

How do you convert a jQuery object into a string?

Answer 1

No need to clone and add to the DOM to use .html(), you can do:

$('#item-of-interest').wrap('<div></div>').html()

Answer 2

I assume you're asking for the full HTML string. If that's the case, something like this will do the trick:

$('<div>').append($('#item-of-interest').clone()).html(); 

This is explained in more depth here, but essentially you make a new node to wrap the item of interest, do the manipulations, remove it, and grab the HTML.

If you're just after a string representation, then go with new String(obj).

Update

I wrote the original answer in 2009. As of 2014, most major browsers now support outerHTML as a native property (see, for example, Firefox and Internet Explorer), so you can do:

$('#item-of-interest').prop('outerHTML');

Answer 3

The best way to find out what properties and methods are available to an HTML node (object) is to do something like:

console.log($("#my-node"));

From jQuery 1.6+ you can just use outerHTML to include the HTML tags in your string output:

var node = $("#my-node").outerHTML;

Answer 4

It may be possible to use the jQuery.makeArray(obj) utility function:

var obj = $('<p />',{'class':'className'}).html('peekaboo');
var objArr = $.makeArray(obj);
var plainText = objArr[0];

Answer 5

new String(myobj)

If you want to serialize the whole object to string, use JSON.

Answer 6

This seems to work fine for me:

$("#id")[0].outerHTML