Remove all child elements of a DOM node in JavaScript

Question

How would I go about removing all of the child elements of a DOM node in JavaScript?

Say I have the following (ugly) HTML:

    &         


        

Answer 1

Here is what I usually do :

HTMLElement.prototype.empty = function() {
    while (this.firstChild) {
        this.removeChild(this.firstChild);
    }
}

And voila, later on you can empty any dom element with :

anyDom.empty()