jQuery clone duplicate IDs

Question

I have an HTML element with a large collection of unordered lists contained within it. I need to clone this element to place elsewhere on the page with different styles adde

Answer 1

Since the OP asked for a way to replace all the duplicate id's before appending them, maybe something like this would work. Assuming you wanted to clone MainConfig_1 in an HTML block such as this:

    

        

            
red
            
blue
        
    

The code could be something like the following, to find all child elements (and descendants) of the cloned block, and modify their id's using a counter:

var cur_num = 1;    // Counter used previously.
//...
var cloned = $("#MainConfig_" + cur_num).clone(true, true).get(0);
++cur_num;
cloned.id = "MainConfig_" + cur_num;                  // Change the div itself.
$(cloned).find("*").each(function(index, element) {   // And all inner elements.
    if(element.id)
    {
        var matches = element.id.match(/(.+)_\d+/);
        if(matches && matches.length >= 2)            // Captures start at [1].
            element.id = matches[1] + "_" + cur_num;
    }
});
$(cloned).appendTo($("#smallConfig"));

To create new HTML like this:

    

        

            
red
            
blue
        
    
    

        

            
red
            
blue