What is the difference between jQuery: text() and html() ?
I think the difference is nearly self-explanatory. And it's super trivial to test.
jQuery.html() treats the string as HTML, jQuery.text() treats the content as text
<html><head> <title>Test Page</title> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> $(function(){ $("#div1").html('<a href="example.html">Link</a><b>hello</b>'); $("#div2").text('<a href="example.html">Link</a><b>hello</b>'); }); </script></head><body><div id="div1"></div><div id="div2"></div></body></html>A difference that may not be so obvious is described in the jQuery API documentation
In the documentation for .html():
The
.html()method is not available in XML documents.
And in the documentation for .text():
Unlike the
.html()method,.text()can be used in both XML and HTML documents.
$(function() { $("#div1").html('<a href="example.html">Link</a><b>hello</b>'); $("#div2").text('<a href="example.html">Link</a><b>hello</b>');});<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js"></script><div id="div1"></div><div id="div2"></div>
((please update if necessary, this answer is a Wiki))
Sub-question: when only text, what is faster, .text() or .html()?
Answer: .html() is faster! See here a "behaviour test-kit" for all the question.
So, in conclusion, if you have "only a text", use html() method.
Note: Doesn't make sense? Remember that the .html() function is only a wrapper to .innerHTML, but in the .text() function jQuery adds an "entity filter", and this filter naturally consumes time.
Ok, if you really want performance... Use pure Javascript to access direct text-replace by the nodeValue property.Benchmark conclusions:
- jQuery's
.html()is ~2x faster than.text(). - pure JS'
.innerHTMLis ~3x faster than.html(). - pure JS'
.nodeValueis ~50x faster than.html(), ~100x than.text(), and ~20x than.innerHTML.
PS: .textContent property was introduced with DOM-Level-3, .nodeValue is DOM-Level-2 and is faster (!).
// Using jQuery:simplecron.restart(); for (var i=1; i<3000; i++) $("#work").html('BENCHMARK WORK');var ht = simplecron.duration();simplecron.restart(); for (var i=1; i<3000; i++) $("#work").text('BENCHMARK WORK');alert("JQuery (3000x): \nhtml="+ht+"\ntext="+simplecron.duration());// Using pure JavaScript only:simplecron.restart(); for (var i=1; i<3000; i++) document.getElementById('work').innerHTML = 'BENCHMARK WORK';ht = simplecron.duration();simplecron.restart(); for (var i=1; i<3000; i++) document.getElementById('work').nodeValue = 'BENCHMARK WORK';alert("Pure JS (3000x):\ninnerHTML="+ht+"\nnodeValue="+simplecron.duration());
The first example will actually embed HTML within the div whereas the second example will escape the text by means of replacing element-related characters with their corresponding character entities so that it displays literally (i.e. the HTML will be displayed not rendered).