How to Add a Class to a Dom Element in JavaScript

How to add a class to a given element?

If you're only targeting modern browsers:

Use element.classList.add to add a class:

element.classList.add("my-class");

And element.classList.remove to remove a class:

element.classList.remove("my-class");

If you need to support Internet Explorer 9 or lower:

Add a space plus the name of your new class to the className property of the element. First, put an id on the element so you can easily get a reference.

<div id="div1" class="someclass">
    <img ... id="image1" name="image1" />
</div>

Then

var d = document.getElementById("div1");
d.className += " otherclass";

Note the space before otherclass. It's important to include the space otherwise it compromises existing classes that come before it in the class list.

How can I add a class to a DOM element in JavaScript?

This answer was written/accepted a long time ago. Since then better, more comprehensive answers with examples have been submitted. You can find them by scrolling down. Below is the original accepted answer preserved for posterity.

new_row.className = "aClassName";

Here's more information on MDN: className

How can I change an element's class with JavaScript?

Modern HTML5 Techniques for changing classes

Modern browsers have added classList which provides methods to make it easier to manipulate classes without needing a library:

document.getElementById("MyElement").classList.add('MyClass');

document.getElementById("MyElement").classList.remove('MyClass');

if ( document.getElementById("MyElement").classList.contains('MyClass') )

document.getElementById("MyElement").classList.toggle('MyClass');

Unfortunately, these do not work in Internet Explorer prior to v10, though there is a shim to add support for it to IE8 and IE9, available from this page. It is, though, getting more and more supported.

Simple cross-browser solution

The standard JavaScript way to select an element is using document.getElementById("Id"), which is what the following examples use - you can of course obtain elements in other ways, and in the right situation may simply use this instead - however, going into detail on this is beyond the scope of the answer.

To change all classes for an element:

To replace all existing classes with one or more new classes, set the className attribute:

document.getElementById("MyElement").className = "MyClass";

(You can use a space-delimited list to apply multiple classes.)

To add an additional class to an element:

To add a class to an element, without removing/affecting existing values, append a space and the new classname, like so:

document.getElementById("MyElement").className += " MyClass";

To remove a class from an element:

To remove a single class to an element, without affecting other potential classes, a simple regex replace is required:

document.getElementById("MyElement").className =
   document.getElementById("MyElement").className.replace
      ( /(?:^|\s)MyClass(?!\S)/g , '' )
/* Code wrapped for readability - above is all one statement */

An explanation of this regex is as follows:

(?:^|\s) # Match the start of the string or any single whitespace character

MyClass  # The literal text for the classname to remove

(?!\S)   # Negative lookahead to verify the above is the whole classname
         # Ensures there is no non-space character following
         # (i.e. must be the end of the string or space)

The g flag tells the replace to repeat as required, in case the class name has been added multiple times.

To check if a class is already applied to an element:

The same regex used above for removing a class can also be used as a check as to whether a particular class exists:

if ( document.getElementById("MyElement").className.match(/(?:^|\s)MyClass(?!\S)/) )

### Assigning these actions to onClick events:

Whilst it is possible to write JavaScript directly inside the HTML event attributes (such as onClick="this.className+=' MyClass'") this is not recommended behavior. Especially on larger applications, more maintainable code is achieved by separating HTML markup from JavaScript interaction logic.

The first step to achieving this is by creating a function, and calling the function in the onClick attribute, for example:

<script type="text/javascript">
    function changeClass(){
        // Code examples from above
    }
</script>
...
<button onClick="changeClass()">My Button</button>

_{(It is not required to have this code in script tags, this is simply for the brevity of example, and including the JavaScript in a distinct file may be more appropriate.)}

The second step is to move the onClick event out of the HTML and into JavaScript, for example using addEventListener

<script type="text/javascript">
    function changeClass(){
        // Code examples from above
    }

    window.onload = function(){
        document.getElementById("MyElement").addEventListener( 'click', changeClass);
    }
</script>
...
<button id="MyElement">My Button</button>

(Note that the window.onload part is required so that the contents of that function are executed after the HTML has finished loading - without this, the MyElement might not exist when the JavaScript code is called, so that line would fail.)

JavaScript Frameworks and Libraries

The above code is all in standard JavaScript, however, it is common practice to use either a framework or a library to simplify common tasks, as well as benefit from fixed bugs and edge cases that you might not think of when writing your code.

Whilst some people consider it overkill to add a ~50 KB framework for simply changing a class, if you are doing any substantial amount of JavaScript work or anything that might have unusual cross-browser behavior, it is well worth considering.

(Very roughly, a library is a set of tools designed for a specific task, whilst a framework generally contains multiple libraries and performs a complete set of duties.)

The examples above have been reproduced below using jQuery, probably the most commonly used JavaScript library (though there are others worth investigating too).

(Note that $ here is the jQuery object.)

Changing Classes with jQuery:

$('#MyElement').addClass('MyClass');

$('#MyElement').removeClass('MyClass');

if ( $('#MyElement').hasClass('MyClass') )

In addition, jQuery provides a shortcut for adding a class if it doesn't apply, or removing a class that does:

$('#MyElement').toggleClass('MyClass');

### Assigning a function to a click event with jQuery:

$('#MyElement').click(changeClass);

or, without needing an id:

$(':button:contains(My Button)').click(changeClass);

document.createElement('div') with a class

Do div.classList.add

let div = document.createElement('div');div.classList.add('test');let text = document.createTextNode('Test');div.appendChild(text);document.body.appendChild(div)

.test {  color: green;}

How to add class to element created using document.createElement?

before append li tag in the ul you need add your class then append li tag to ul tag like this

 var listItem = document.createElement('LI'); 
 listItem.className = 'someClassName';
 ul.appendChild(listItem);

How to add a Class into dynamically created DOM element or a class

You are missing the . when selecting by classname. Try below:

if (count == 1) {
    $('.dynamic-class' + count).removeClass('active');
    count++;
    $('.dynamic-class' + count).addClass('active');
}
if (count == 2) {
    $('.dynamic-class' + count).removeClass('active');
    count--;
    $('.dynamic-class' + count).addClass('active');
}

Add class to element in the DOM based on content

I changed your replaceText() function and tested it on this page. It replaces text and adds a filter class on the nodes with replaced text. This solution uses classList.add('filter') which is not supported in IE9 and earlier, but that's no issue since this code is for a Chrome extension.

function replaceText(textNode) {
    var nodeValue = textNode.nodeValue;
    for (var i=0; i < MATCH.length; i++) {
        if(-1 != nodeValue.indexOf(MATCH[i])) {
            nodeValue = nodeValue.replace(new RegExp(MATCH[i], 'g'), REPLACE[i]);
            textNode.parentNode.classList.add('filter');
        }
    }
    textNode.nodeValue = nodeValue;
}

How to add/remove a class in JavaScript?

One way to play around with classes without frameworks/libraries would be using the property Element.className, which "gets and sets the value of the class attribute of the specified element." (from the MDN documentation).

As @matías-fidemraizer already mentioned in his answer, once you get the string of classes for your element you can use any methods associated with strings to modify it.

Here's an example:

Assuming you have a div with the ID "myDiv" and that you want to add to it the class "main__section" when the user clicks on it,

window.onload = init;

function init() {
  document.getElementById("myDiv").onclick = addMyClass;
}

function addMyClass() {
  var classString = this.className; // returns the string of all the classes for myDiv
  var newClass = classString.concat(" main__section"); // Adds the class "main__section" to the string (notice the leading space)
  this.className = newClass; // sets className to the new string
}