Question

This is bit tough question. I”m using third party library that will insert result into DOM.

Example:

$('#puthere').thirdpartyplugin();

this will call thirdpartyplugin and manipulate result of HTML element #puthere.

My question is, how to output result to JavaScript variable rather than DOM element?

var plainOutput =  $.thirdpartyplugin();  alert(plainOutput);

I do not want to manipulate HTML element that is visible to users. I just want to call alert(plainOutput) the result.

Answer 1

Create a temporary element:

var $out = $('<div />');
$out.thirdpartyplugin();
alert($out.html()): // or .text();

This might or might not work, depending on what the plugin is doing.

If the plugin plays by the rules and supports method chaining, you can also do:

var $out = $('<div />').thirdpartyplugin().html();