jQuery: When creating a new element, do I need the ending tag?

Question

var $div = $(\'
\').appendTo($(\'#header\'));

When creating new elements and adding them to the DOM, do you need the endi

Answer 1

Although it may work if you don't use a closing tag (or at least self close the tag), you should add a closing tag (self-close) (as mentioned, for cross-platform compatibility):

To ensure cross-platform compatibility, the snippet must be well-formed. Tags that can contain other elements should be paired with a closing tag:

$('');

Alternatively, jQuery allows XML-like tag syntax (with or without a space before the slash):

$('');

Tags that cannot contain elements may be quick-closed or not:

$('');
$('');

This is how jQuery creates the elements:

If the HTML is more complex than a single tag without attributes, as it is in the above example, the actual creation of the elements is handled by the browser's innerHTML mechanism. In most cases, jQuery creates a new element and sets the innerHTML property of the element to the HTML snippet that was passed in. When the parameter has a single tag, such as $('') or $(''), jQuery creates the element using the native JavaScript createElement() function.

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Btw. you can also pass the data as second parameter:

$('
', {'class': 'error', text: 'Error-Homie!'})