Change the tag but keep the attributes and content -- jQuery/Javascript

Here is a method I use to replace html tags in jquery:

// Iterate over each element and replace the tag while maintaining attributes
$('a').each(function() {

  // Create a new element and assign it attributes from the current element
  var NewElement = $("<p />");
  $.each(this.attributes, function(i, attrib){
    $(NewElement).attr(attrib.name, attrib.value);
  });

  // Replace the current element with the new one and carry over the contents
  $(this).replaceWith(function () {
    return $(NewElement).append($(this).contents());
  });

});

I would also typically restrict it to a specific class, such as $('a.class1').each(function() for the example above.

hacky that do the trick

var p = $('a').wrapAll('<div class="replace"></div>');

var a = $('div').map(function(){
    return this.innerHTML;
}).get().join(' ');


$('div.replace').html(a.replace(/<a/g,'<p').replace(/a>/g,'p>'));

demo ​

It's better to create jQuery plugin for future re-usability:

(function (a) {
    a.fn.replaceTagName = function (f) {
        var g = [],
            h = this.length;
        while (h--) {
            var k = document.createElement(f),
                b = this[h],
                d = b.attributes;
            for (var c = d.length - 1; c >= 0; c--) {
                var j = d[c];
                k.setAttribute(j.name, j.value)
            }
            k.innerHTML = b.innerHTML;
            a(b).after(k).remove();
            g[h - 1] = k
        }
        return a(g)
    }
})(window.jQuery);

Usage:

// Replace given object tag's name
$('a').replaceTagName("p");

Example: JSFiddle

Here is a more generic method:

// New type of the tag
var replacementTag = 'p';

// Replace all a tags with the type of replacementTag
$('a').each(function() {
    var outer = this.outerHTML;

    // Replace opening tag
    var regex = new RegExp('<' + this.tagName, 'i');
    var newTag = outer.replace(regex, '<' + replacementTag);

    // Replace closing tag
    regex = new RegExp('</' + this.tagName, 'i');
    newTag = newTag.replace(regex, '</' + replacementTag);

    $(this).replaceWith(newTag);
});

You can try the code here: http://jsfiddle.net/tTAJM/