Node.appendChild

The Node.appendChild() method adds a node to the end of the list of children of a specified parent node. If the given child is a reference to an existing node in the document, appendChild() moves it from its current position to the new position (there is no requirement to remove the node from its parent node before appending it to some other node).

This means that a node can't be in two points of the document simultaneously. So if the node already has a parent, the node is first removed, then appended at the new position. The Node.cloneNode() can be used to make a copy of the node before appending it under the new parent. Note that the copies made with cloneNode will not be automatically kept in sync.

Syntax

var aChild = element.appendChild(aChild);

The returned value is the appended child.

Example

// Create a new paragraph element, and append it to the end of the document body
var p = document.createElement("p");
document.body.appendChild(p);

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
DOM The definition of 'Node.appendChild()' in that specification.	Living Standard	No change from Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Specification.
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Core Specification The definition of 'Node.appendChild()' in that specification.	Recommendation	No change from Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 Core Specification.
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 Core Specification The definition of 'Node.appendChild()' in that specification.	Recommendation	No change from Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 Specification.
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1 Specification The definition of 'Node.appendChild()' in that specification.	Recommendation	Initial definition.

Browser compatibility

See also

• Node.removeChild()
• Node.replaceChild()
• Node.insertBefore()
• Node.hasChildNodes()