How can I change an element's text without changing its child elements?

Question

I\'d like to update element\'s text dynamically:

   **text to change**
   
       text t         


        
      

Answer 1

Problem with Mark's answer is that you get empty textnodes aswell. Solution as jQuery plugin:

$.fn.textnodes = function () {
    return this.contents().filter(function (i,n) {
        return n.nodeType == 3 && n.textContent.trim() !== "";
    });
};

$("div").textnodes()[0] = "changed text";