How can I change an element's text without cha

Question

I'd like to update element's text dynamically:

<div>
   **text to change**
   <someChild>
       text that should not change
   </someChild>
   <someChild>
       text that should not change
   </someChild>
</div>

I'm new to jQuery, so this task seems to be quite challenging for me. Could someone point me to a function/selector to use?

If it is possible, I'd like to do it without adding a new container for the text I need to change.

Answer 1

$.fn.textPreserveChildren = function(text) {
  return this.each(function() {
    return $(this).contents().filter(function() {
      return this.nodeType == 3;
    }).first().replaceWith(text);
  })
}

setTimeout(function() {
  $('.target').textPreserveChildren('Modified');
}, 2000);

.blue {
  background: #77f;
}
.green {
  background: #7f7;
}

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.0/jquery.min.js"></script>

<div class="target blue">Outer text
  <div>Nested element</div>
</div>

<div class="target green">Another outer text
  <div>Another nested element</div>
</div>

Answer 2

This is an old question but you can make a simple function like this to make your life easier:

$.fn.toText = function(str) {
    var cache = this.children();
    this.text(str).append(cache);
}

Example:

<div id="my-div">
   **text to change**
   <p>
       text that should not change
   </p>
   <p>
       text that should not change
   </p>
</div>

Usage:

$("#my-div").toText("helloworld");

Answer 3

Just wrap the text you want to change in a span with a class to select.

Doesn't necessarily answer your question I know, but, probably a better coding practice. Keep things clean and simple

<div id="header">
   <span class="my-text">**text to change**</span>
   <div>
       text that should not change
   </div>
   <div>
       text that should not change
   </div>
</div>

Voilà!

$('#header .mytext').text('New text here')

Answer 4

Mark’s got a better solution using jQuery, but you might be able to do this in regular JavaScript too.

In Javascript, the childNodes property gives you all the child nodes of an element, including text nodes.

So, if you knew the text you wanted to change was always going to be the first thing in the element, then given e.g. this HTML:

<div id="your_div">
   **text to change**
   <p>
       text that should not change
   </p>
   <p>
       text that should not change
   </p>
</div>

You could do this:

var your_div = document.getElementById('your_div');

var text_to_change = your_div.childNodes[0];

text_to_change.nodeValue = 'new text';

Of course, you can still use jQuery to select the <div> in the first place (i.e. var your_div = $('your_div').get(0);).

Answer 5

<div id="divtochange">
    **text to change**
    <div>text that should not change</div>
    <div>text that should not change</div>
</div>

$(document).ready(function() {
    $("#divtochange").contents().filter(function() {
            return this.nodeType == 3;
        })
        .replaceWith("changed text");
});

This changes only the first textnode

Answer 6

Problem with Mark's answer is that you get empty textnodes aswell. Solution as jQuery plugin:

$.fn.textnodes = function () {
    return this.contents().filter(function (i,n) {
        return n.nodeType == 3 && n.textContent.trim() !== "";
    });
};

$("div").textnodes()[0] = "changed text";