jQuery(html) → jQuery

You can pass in plain HTML Strings written by hand, create them using some template engine or plugin, or load them via AJAX. There are limitations when creating input elements, see the second example. Also when passing strings that may include slashes (such as an image path), escape the slashes. When creating single elements use the closing tag or XHTML format. For example, to create a span use $("<span/>") or $("<span></span>") instead of without the closing slash/tag.

String html : A string of HTML to create on the fly.

Example:

Creates a div element (and all of its contents) dynamically, and appends it to the body element. Internally, an element is created and its innerHTML property set to the given markup. It is therefore both quite flexible and limited.

$("<div><p>Hello</p></div>").appendTo("body")

Example:

Do not create <input>-Elements without a type-attribute, due to Microsofts read/write-once-rule for the type-attribute of <input>-elements, see this [http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms534700.aspx official statement] for details.

// Does NOT work in IE:
$("<input/>").attr("type", "checkbox");
// Does work in IE:
$("<input type='checkbox'/>");