Cheerio: .html() returns outerHTML, while .html(html) sets innerHTML

[matthewmueller]

I can't believe this one has gone unnoticed. I'm not really sure what to do about it actually. I think it's more useful how it is right now, but I don't like the asymmetry. I also don't like straying away from the jQuery API.

What do you guy's think?

[siddMahen]

I think that we should stick to the jQuery spec. So .html() should both return and set innerHTML.

[matthewmueller]

Yah.. but jQuery doesn't have a good way of getting "outerHTML".

[siddMahen]

Then it would be better to provide a separate function to get and set outerHTML, rather than mix and match with .html().

Plus, it's better to break functionality early on, rather than later.

[ironchefpython]

I'd like to be able to use this library to execute the same manipulation on the server as I do in the browser. jQuery compatibility seems like the highest priority. I think .html() should read and write innerHTML.

I'd vote for adding a special method like .toHtml() which would return an array of strings if you need to dump outerHTML of the collection for debugging purposes.

[matthewmueller]

Yah, I tend to agree with you. I want it to be incredibly easy to get the outer HTML though, because most of my use cases involve manipulating the html string, then rendering the _whole_ string.

I'm realizing though, that in jQuery i never needed to get the outer HTML, because I'm never rendering the whole document. So this is what I'm thinking:

$('.orange').html() // => returned innerHTML

$.html() // => Returned entire HTML string

This way we are adhering to the jQuery spec while extending the spec gracefully to cover a major use case of server-side rendering.

[ironchefpython]

I'm fine with that, also, I'd allow $.html to take an optional cheerio parameter, so in code like the following:

var span = $("<div><span>foo</span><span>bar</span></div>").children().get(1);
span.html() // => returns "bar"
$.html(span) // => returns "<span>bar</span>"

The major advantage to that, is if I wanted jQuery to behave the same way, I could write a jQuery plugin for that in 30 seconds.

[matthewmueller]

Jeez @ironchefpython you're on fire! I like it. Added to master.

[ironchefpython]

The following assertion fails:

      $.html($('<span>baz</span>')).should.equal('<span>baz</span>');