Question

How do you add boolean attributes using JavaScript? For example, how can you change:

<p> to <p contenteditable>

<p> to <p data-example>

Answer 1

In general, you can use element.setAttribute('attributeName', 'value') or element.propertyName = value to toggle an element’s attributes or properties.

Boolean attributes

For boolean attributes, set the attribute with the same-named value:

element.setAttribute('disabled', 'disabled');

Removing a boolean attribute works the same way as other attributes:

element.removeAttribute('disabled');

However, neither of your two examples are boolean attributes!

contenteditable

contenteditable is not a boolean attribute, it’s an enumerated attribute. Its possible values are the empty string, "true", and "false".

While setAttribute seems overkill in this case, you could use it:

element.setAttribute('contenteditable', 'true');
// to undo:
element.removeAttribute('contenteditable');

The property name for the contenteditable attribute is contentEditable (note the capital E), and it recognizes the values 'true', 'false', and 'inherit' — so you could just use:

element.contentEditable = 'true';
// to undo:
element.contentEditable = 'false';

Note that 'true' and 'false' are strings here, not booleans.

data-example

For the data-example attribute, you could use:

element.setAttribute('data-example', 'some value'); // the value should be a string
// to undo:
element.removeAttribute('data-example');

Or, in browsers who support dataset (see the ones highlighted in light green on http://caniuse.com/dataset), you could use:

element.dataset.example = 'some value';