.wrap()

Categories: Manipulation > DOM Insertion, Around

.wrap( wrappingElement )Returns: jQuery

Description: Wrap an HTML structure around each element in the set of matched elements.

  • version added: 1.0.wrap( wrappingElement )

    • wrappingElement
      A selector, element, HTML string, or jQuery object specifying the structure to wrap around the matched elements. When you pass a jQuery collection containing more than one element, or a selector matching more than one element, the first element will be used.

  • version added: 1.4.wrap( function )

    • function
      Type: Function( Integer index ) => String or jQuery
      A callback function returning the HTML content or jQuery object to wrap around the matched elements. Receives the index position of the element in the set as an argument. Within the function, this refers to the current element in the set.

The .wrap() function can take any string or object that could be passed to the $() factory function to specify a DOM structure. This structure may be nested several levels deep, but should contain only one inmost element. A copy of this structure will be wrapped around each of the elements in the set of matched elements. This method returns the original set of elements for chaining purposes.

Consider the following HTML:

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<div class="container">
  <div class="inner">Hello</div>
  <div class="inner">Goodbye</div>
</div>

Using .wrap(), we can insert an HTML structure around the inner <div> elements like so:

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$( ".inner" ).wrap( "<div class='new'></div>" );

The new <div> element is created on the fly and added to the DOM. The result is a new <div> wrapped around each matched element:

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<div class="container">
  <div class="new">
    <div class="inner">Hello</div>
  </div>
  <div class="new">
    <div class="inner">Goodbye</div>
  </div>
</div>

The second version of this method allows us to instead specify a callback function. This callback function will be called once for every matched element; it should return a DOM element, jQuery object, or HTML snippet in which to wrap the corresponding element. For example:

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$( ".inner" ).wrap(function() {
  return "<div class='" + $( this ).text() + "'></div>";
});

This will cause each <div> to have a class corresponding to the text it wraps:

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<div class="container">
  <div class="Hello">
    <div class="inner">Hello</div>
  </div>
  <div class="Goodbye">
    <div class="inner">Goodbye</div>
  </div>
</div>

Examples:

Wrap a new div around all of the paragraphs.

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<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <title>wrap demo</title>
  <style>
  div {
    border: 2px solid blue;
  }
  p {
    background: yellow;
    margin: 4px;
  }
  </style>
  <script src="jquery-1.10.2.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
 
<p>Hello</p>
<p>cruel</p>
<p>World</p>
 
<script>
$( "p" ).wrap( "<div></div>" );
</script>
 
</body>
</html>

Demo:

Wraps a newly created tree of objects around the spans. Notice anything in between the spans gets left out like the <strong> (red text) in this example. Even the white space between spans is left out. Click View Source to see the original html.>

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<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <title>wrap demo</title>
  <style>
  div {
    border: 2px blue solid;
    margin: 2px;
    padding: 2px;
  }
  p {
    background: yellow;
    margin: 2px;
    padding: 2px;
  }
  strong {
    color: red;
  }
  </style>
  <script src="jquery-1.10.2.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
 
<span>Span Text</span>
<strong>What about me?</strong>
<span>Another One</span>
 
<script>
$( "span" ).wrap( "<div><div><p><em><b></b></em></p></div></div>" );
</script>
 
</body>
</html>

Demo:

Wrap a new div around all of the paragraphs.

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<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <title>wrap demo</title>
  <style>
  div {
    border: 2px solid blue;
  }
  p {
    background: yellow;
    margin: 4px;
  }
  </style>
  <script src="jquery-1.10.2.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
 
<p>Hello</p>
<p>cruel</p>
<p>World</p>
 
<script>
$( "p" ).wrap( document.createElement( "div" ) );
</script>
 
</body>
</html>

Demo:

Wrap a jQuery object double depth div around all of the paragraphs. Notice it doesn't move the object but just clones it to wrap around its target.

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<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <title>wrap demo</title>
  <style>
  div {
    border: 2px solid blue;
    margin: 2px;
    padding: 2px;
  }
  .doublediv {
    border-color: red;
  }
  p {
    background: yellow;
    margin: 4px;
    font-size: 14px;
  }
  </style>
  <script src="jquery-1.10.2.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
 
<p>Hello</p>
<p>cruel</p>
<p>World</p>
<div class="doublediv"><div></div></div>
 
<script>
$( "p" ).wrap( $( ".doublediv" ) );
</script>
 
</body>
</html>

Demo: