HTML DOM Element removeChild Method

As mentioned already, replacing innerHTML with an empty string will require HTML parsing on the browser’s part. This is fully supported in Chrome/Edge 86+, Firefox 78+, and Safari 14+. The loop continues to check for firstChild just in case it’s faster to check for firstChild than lastChild (e.g. if the element list is implemented as a directed linked-list by the UA). STEP 2 − At every iteration we checked if there is any child present in the parent or not. To iterate all the nodes, you could use any loop such as for or while loop.

This method isn’t recommended because it doesn’t remove event handlers of child node. Hence, it might cause a memory leak if you are managing a big list of elements. We have discussed four methods to remove all child elements of a DOM node in JavaScript. We recommend you to use the first method or the fourth method. If you are using jQuery then use the third method, we won’t recommend you to use the second method if you are building a complex UI because it makes the web pages slower. Suppose you are building a web app that manages the data of daily tasks, the user inserts the task and a list of tasks gets formed. But at some point in time, the user wants to remove all the tasks from the list and wants to make the list empty.

By iterating the DOM nodes and using the removeChild Method

So, as a developer, you should know how to remove all the child elements from the DOM node. To remove all child nodes of an element, you can use the element’s removeChild() method along with the lastChild property. However, it is not recommended because it doesn’t remove the event handlers of the child nodes, which might cause a memory leak.

• The currently accepted answer is wrong about innerHTML being slower , as m93a correctly mentioned.
• Tutorials, references, and examples are constantly reviewed to avoid errors, but we cannot warrant full correctness of all content.
• The parentElement.removeChild(parentElement.firstChild) remove the first child of the DOM node.
• The loop continues to check for firstChild just in case it’s faster to check for firstChild than lastChild (e.g. if the element list is implemented as a directed linked-list by the UA).
• Child nodes can be removed from a parent with removeChild(), and a node itself can be removed with remove().
• The child is removed from the Document Object Model .
• Using “remove” Method inside a While loop for eliminating First child element , until there is none left.

Here the parentElement.hasChildNodes() will check if there is any element present in the DOM node or not. The parentElement.removeChild(parentElement.firstChild) remove the first child of the DOM node. Child A Node that is the child node to be removed from the DOM. If the return value of removeChild() is not stored, and no other reference is kept, it will be automatically deleted from memory after a short time. Using “remove” Method inside a While loop for eliminating First child element , until there is none left. If you are replacing the original node with its clone, you are losing the reference to the original node.

JavaScript Runtime

However, this does not preserve event listeners and breaks any other references to the node. “childNodes” in domChildren will give a nodeList of the immediate children elements, which is empty when none are found. In order to map over the nodeList, domChildren converts it to array.

None of the event handlers and other bindings won’t work. Also this works for nodes not in the dom which return null when trying to access the parentNode. In addition, if you need to be safe a node is empty before adding content this is really helpful. If you simply use DOM methods of removing the children, that data will remain. Here the parentElement is the DOM node from which we want to remove chid elements.

HTML Objects

To remove all the elements from the DOM node we have the following approaches. Child nodes can be removed from a parent with removeChild(), and a node itself can be removed with remove(). Generally, JavaScript uses arrays to reference lists of DOM nodes. So, this will work nicely if you have an interest in doing it through the HTMLElements array. Also, worth noting, because I am using an array reference instead of JavaScript proto’s this should work in any browser, including IE. I find this method very useful when replacing a string inside an element, if you are not sure what the node will contain, instead of worrying how to clean up the mess, start out fresh. It’s experimental without wide support, but when executed with no params will do what you’re asking for, and it’s more efficient than looping through each child and removing it.

• However, it is not recommended because it doesn’t remove the event handlers of the child nodes, which might cause a memory leak.
• Also this works for nodes not in the dom which return null when trying to access the parentNode.
• The clear function is taking the element and using the parent node to replace itself with a copy without it’s children.
• In this method, we assign a blank string or null to object.innerHTML .
• Learn how to delete all the nodes inside a div or any node in Javascript.
• The Document Object Model is a way of representing a programming interface for HTML and XML documents.
• Finally, do not use node.parentNode.replaceChild(node.cloneNode, node).

Setting innerHTML might also be faster than removing children one by one, but that doesn’t work on anything but HTML documents. @micha jsperf.com/innerhtml-vs-removechild/151 using .remove() is even faster. According to MDN this will be faster than innerHTML as browsers won’t invoke their HTML parsers and will instead immediately replace all children of the element with a single #text node.

Advanced Functions

Everything else in this thread is disinformation (!) Thanks for cleaning up all those bad old tests. The fastest DOM manipulation method is the Range removal, but ranges aren’t supported until IE9. The currently accepted answer is wrong about innerHTML being slower , as m93a correctly mentioned. Append all of the given new children, in one operation. This approach is simple, but might not be suitable for high-performance applications because it invokes the browser’s HTML parser . Trending sort is based off of the default sorting method — by highest score — but it boosts votes that have happened recently, helping to surface more up-to-date answers.