Document: append() method

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.

The Document.append() method inserts a set of Node objects or strings after the last child of the document. Strings are inserted as equivalent Text nodes.

This method appends a child to a Document. To append to an arbitrary element in the tree, see Element.append().

Syntax

js
append(param1)
append(param1, param2)
append(param1, param2, /* …, */ paramN)

Parameters

param1, …, paramN

A set of Node objects or strings to insert.

Return value

None (undefined).

Exceptions

HierarchyRequestError DOMException

Thrown when the node cannot be inserted at the specified point in the hierarchy.

Examples

Appending a root element to a document

If you try to append an element to an existing HTML document, it might throw a HierarchyRequestError DOMException given a <html> element already exists.

js
let html = document.createElement("html");
document.append(html);
// HierarchyRequestError: The operation would yield an incorrect node tree.

If you are creating a new document without any existing element, you can append a root HTML element (or a root SVG element):

js
let doc = new Document();
let html = document.createElement("html");
doc.append(html);

doc.children; // HTMLCollection [<html>]

Specifications

Specification
DOM Standard
# ref-for-dom-parentnode-append①

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also