Now that you know how to select HTML page elements in jQuery, you can start to do useful things with those elements. In this tutorial you’ll look at how to work with the contents of an element.
jQuery lets you work with HTML elements and element content in many different ways. For example, you can add new elements inside, around, before, or after existing elements; you can replace an element with another element (or elements); and you can read or change an element’s contents. Often the line between working with elements and element content is blurred — for example, when you add new elements inside an existing element, you’re effectively adding to that element’s contents.
You’ll look at adding, removing and replacing elements in a later tutorial. In this tutorial you’ll learn about 3 jQuery methods designed for working directly with the contents of an element:
html()for reading and changing the HTML contents of an elementtext()for reading and changing the text contents of an elementval()for reading and changing form field values
As you’ll see, these methods make it very easy to read or change the raw contents or value of any HTML element.