How to change an element's class with JavaScri

Question

How can I change a class of an HTML element in response to an onClick event using JavaScript?

Answer 1

Just thought I'd throw this in:

function inArray(val, ary){
  for(var i=0,l=ary.length; i<l; i++){
    if(ary[i] === val){
      return true;
    }
  }
  return false;
}
function removeClassName(classNameS, fromElement){
  var x = classNameS.split(/\s/), s = fromElement.className.split(/\s/), r = [];
  for(var i=0,l=s.length; i<l; i++){
    if(!iA(s[i], x))r.push(s[i]);
  }
  fromElement.className = r.join(' ');
}
function addClassName(classNameS, toElement){
  var s = toElement.className.split(/\s/);
  s.push(c); toElement.className = s.join(' ');
}

Answer 2

As well you could extend HTMLElement object, in order to add methods to add, remove, toggle and check classes (gist):

HTMLElement = typeof(HTMLElement) != 'undefiend' ? HTMLElement : Element;

HTMLElement.prototype.addClass = function(string) {
  if (!(string instanceof Array)) {
    string = string.split(' ');
  }
  for(var i = 0, len = string.length; i < len; ++i) {
    if (string[i] && !new RegExp('(\\s+|^)' + string[i] + '(\\s+|$)').test(this.className)) {
      this.className = this.className.trim() + ' ' + string[i];
    }
  }
}

HTMLElement.prototype.removeClass = function(string) {
  if (!(string instanceof Array)) {
    string = string.split(' ');
  }
  for(var i = 0, len = string.length; i < len; ++i) {
    this.className = this.className.replace(new RegExp('(\\s+|^)' + string[i] + '(\\s+|$)'), ' ').trim();
  }
}

HTMLElement.prototype.toggleClass = function(string) {
  if (string) {
    if (new RegExp('(\\s+|^)' + string + '(\\s+|$)').test(this.className)) {
      this.className = this.className.replace(new RegExp('(\\s+|^)' + string + '(\\s+|$)'), ' ').trim();
    } else {
      this.className = this.className.trim() + ' ' + string;
    }
  }
}

HTMLElement.prototype.hasClass = function(string) {
  return string && new RegExp('(\\s+|^)' + string + '(\\s+|$)').test(this.className);
}

And then just use like this (on click will add or remove class):

document.getElementById('yourElementId').onclick = function() {
  this.toggleClass('active');
}

Here is demo.

Answer 3

Just to add on information from another popular framework, Google Closures, see their dom/classes class:

goog.dom.classes.add(element, var_args)

goog.dom.classes.addRemove(element, classesToRemove, classesToAdd)

goog.dom.classes.remove(element, var_args)

One option for selecting the element is using goog.dom.query with a CSS3 selector:

var myElement = goog.dom.query("#MyElement")[0];

Answer 4

No offense, but it's unclever to change class on-the-fly as it forces the CSS interpreter to recalculate the visual presentation of the entire web page.

The reason is that it is nearly impossible for the CSS interpreter to know if any inheritance or cascading could be changed, so the short answer is:

Never ever change className on-the-fly !-)

But usually you'll only need to change a property or two, and that is easily implemented:

function highlight(elm){
    elm.style.backgroundColor ="#345";
    elm.style.color = "#fff";
}

Answer 5

Here's my version, fully working:

function addHTMLClass(item, classname) {
    var obj = item
    if (typeof item=="string") {
        obj = document.getElementById(item)
    }
    obj.className += " " + classname
}

function removeHTMLClass(item, classname) {
    var obj = item
    if (typeof item=="string") {
        obj = document.getElementById(item)
    }
    var classes = ""+obj.className
    while (classes.indexOf(classname)>-1) {
        classes = classes.replace (classname, "")
    }
    obj.className = classes
}

Usage:

<tr onmouseover='addHTMLClass(this,"clsSelected")'
onmouseout='removeHTMLClass(this,"clsSelected")' >

Answer 6

I would use jQuery and write something like this:

jQuery(function($) {
    $("#some-element").click(function() {
        $(this).toggleClass("clicked");
    });
});

This code adds a function to be called when an element of the id some-element is clicked. The function appends clicked to the element's class attribute if it's not already part of it, and removes it if it's there.

Yes you do need to add a reference to the jQuery library in your page to use this code, but at least you can feel confident the most functions in the library would work on pretty much all the modern browsers, and it will save you time implementing your own code to do the same.

Thanks