DOM - Element Object method - setAttribute

The setAttribute method sets a new attribute value to the existing element.

Syntax

Following is the syntax for the usage of the setAttribute method.

elementObj.setAttribute(name)

S.No.	Parameter & Description
1	name It holds the name of the attribute to retrieve.

This method returns the updated value of the attribute.

Example

node.xml contents are as below −

<?xml version = "1.0"?>
<Company>
   <Employee category = "Technical">
      <FirstName>Tanmay</FirstName>
      <LastName>Patil</LastName>
      <ContactNo>1234567890</ContactNo>
      <Email>tanmaypatil@xyz.com</Email>
   </Employee>
   
   <Employee category = "Non-Technical">
      <FirstName>Taniya</FirstName>
      <LastName>Mishra</LastName>
      <ContactNo>1234667898</ContactNo>
      <Email>taniyamishra@xyz.com</Email>
   </Employee>
   
   <Employee category = "Management">
      <FirstName>Tanisha</FirstName>
      <LastName>Sharma</LastName>
      <ContactNo>1234562350</ContactNo>
      <Email>tanishasharma@xyz.com</Email>
   </Employee>
</Company>

Following example demonstrates the usage of the setAttribute method −

<!DOCTYPE html>
   <head>
      <script>
         function loadXMLDoc(filename) {
            if (window.XMLHttpRequest) {
               xhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
            } else // code for IE5 and IE6 {
               xhttp = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
            }
            xhttp.open("GET",filename,false);
            xhttp.send();
            return xhttp.responseXML;
         }
      </script>
   </head>
   <body>
      <script>
         xmlDoc = loadXMLDoc("/dom/node.xml");

         x = xmlDoc.getElementsByTagName('Employee');
         for(i = 0;i < x.length;i++) {
            x.item(i).setAttribute("category","HR");
         }

         document.write("Values of all attribute after using setattribute method: ");
         for (i = 0;i < x.length;i++) {
            
            document.write(x[i].getAttribute('category'));
            document.write("<br>");
         }
      </script>
   </body>
</html>

Execution

Save this file as elementattribute_setAttribute.html on the server path (this file and node.xml should be on the same path in your server). We will get the output as shown below −

Values of all attribute after using setattribute method: 
HR
HR
HR

dom_element_object.htm