Why does call to jQuery's appendChild fail with undefined error?

Question

Here is my simple HTML:

    

        Hello World!
    

Here is

Answer 1

.appendChild() is a plain JavaScript method, not jQuery. The jQuery method is .append().

newDiv.append(newSpan);   
$( myDOMElement ).append(newDiv);

Answer 2

Use .append()

newDiv.append(newSpan); 

.appendChild() works with DOM element. newDiv is jQuery Object not a plain JavaScript DOM element.

Working Fiddle

Answer 3

newDiv is a jQuery object, not a DOM object.

jQuery objects do not have an appendChild method, they have an append method.