What is the most efficient way to create HTML elements using jQuery?

Question

Recently I\'ve been doing a lot of modal window pop-ups and what not, for which I used jQuery. The method that I used to create the new elements on the page has overwhelming

Answer 1

personally i'd suggest (for readability):

$('
');

some numbers on the suggestions so far (safari 3.2.1 / mac os x):

var it = 50000;

var start = new Date().getTime();
for (i = 0; i < it; ++i)  {
  // test creation of an element 
  // see below statements
}
var end = new Date().getTime();
alert( end - start );                

var e = $( document.createElement('div') );  // ~300ms
var e = $('
');                          // ~3100ms
var e = $('
');                    // ~3200ms
var e = $('
');                         // ~3500ms