Question

In javascript, we can create a new DOM element in the following ways…

By using the createAttribute() + setAttributeNode() dom methods:

var input = document.createElement("input"),
    type = document.createAttribute("type");

type.nodeValue = "text";
input.setAttributeNode(type);
container.appendChild(input);

or by just setting the attributes directly:

var input = document.createElement("input");

input.type = "text";
container.appendChild(input);

The latter can end up being quite lot less code, even when there are only a couple attributes per element.

The question: has anyone run across any drawbacks of the latter method (setting attributes directly)?

I tested this on several browsers (the latest FF, IE, Safari, Opera, old IEs – even IE6 worked) and on a basic test (inserting a text input with type, name, and maxLength attributes) they all passed. Here’s the fiddle if anybody needs it.

Answer 1

document.createAttribute
document.createAttributeNS
element.getAttributeNode
element.getAttributeNodeNS
... and a lot of others

will be deprecated in DOM4, so don’t use it, just set with setAttribute(“name”,”value”)

http://www.w3.org/TR/dom/#element

someinput.type is different
basically is a shortcut for doing

setAttribute("type","text");
getAttribute("text");

hope this helps!

element._some_attribute_ is not available for all attributes, just some:
element.dir
element.lang
element.id
...etc