Question

How would I be able to find and replace a div (or other tag) in HTML which is saved as text in a variable? I get the HTML as a text response from ajax:

$.ajax({
    url: 'page.pgp',
    success: function(result) {
    // here I want to find certain HTML tag
        // in result variable and replace it with something else
    }
});

Answer 1

You can turn your HTML response into DOM elements stored in a jQuery object by wrapping it with $(). Then just use .find() to locate what you’re looking for, and use .replaceWith() to remove it and replace with new content.

This example will replace all <div> elements found. You may need to make the selector more specific.

$.ajax({
    url: 'page.pgp',
    success: function(result) {
        var $result = $(result);
        $result.find( 'div' ).replaceWith('<span>something else</span>');
        $result.appendTo('body');
    }
});

Note that if the <div> you’re looking for is at the top level of the elements, you’ll need to use .filter() instead.

The example the uses .appendTo() to insert the result.