javascript getElementById and convert it to String

Question

is there a way to convert a javascript HTML object to a string? i.e.

var someElement = document.getElementById(\"id\");
var someElementToString = someElement         


        

Answer 1

You can always wrap a clone of an element in an 'offscreen', empty container. The container's innerHTML is the 'outerHTML' of the clone- and the original. Pass true as a second parameter to get the element's descendents as well.

document.getHTML=function(who,deep){ 
 if(!who || !who.tagName) return '';
 var txt, el= document.createElement("div");
 el.appendChild(who.cloneNode(deep));
 txt= el.innerHTML;
 el= null;
 return txt;
}