How to replicate:
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Create an html5 page.
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Make sure you have the script from remysharp.com/2009/01/07/html5-enabling-script/ added so that IE will notice the tags.
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Create an hardcoded
<section id='anything'></section>tag. -
Using jQuery 1.3.2, append another section tag:
$('#anything').append('<section id="whatever"></section>');So far, everything works in all the browsers. -
Repeat the previous step.
$('#whatever').append('<section id="fail"></section>');This is where IE6/7 fails. Firefox/Safari will continue working.
Error

Thoughts
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It could be that IE6/7 can’t handle the HTML5 section tag. I say this because when I change step 4 from
<section>to<div>, IE6/7 will start working. -
If I use
document.createElement()and create my new element, it works, but it seems like jQuery’sappend()has a problem with html5 elements.
The bug is in IE’s implementation of innerHTML – for some reason it doesn’t like the “unknown” elements being inserted via innerHTML – whereas DOM scripting is fine.
jQuery uses creates a holding div, and then drops in the markup you want to append in via innerHTML. IE now sees the unknown elements as two new broken elements, i.e.
<article>content</article>is seen asARTICLE,#text,/ARTICLE, caused by innerHTML borking.Here’s an example, check it out in IE and you’ll see that innerHTML insertion method incorrectly reports 3 nodes inserted in the div: http://jsbin.com/olizu
Screenshot for those without IE: http://leftlogic.litmusapp.com/pub/2c3ea3e