How to convert a HTMLElement to a string

The element outerHTML property (note: supported by Firefox after version 11) returns the HTML of the entire element.

Example

<div id="new-element-1">Hello world.</div>

<script type="text/javascript"><!--

var element = document.getElementById("new-element-1");
var elementHtml = element.outerHTML;
// <div id="new-element-1">Hello world.</div>

--></script>

Similarly, you can use innerHTML to get the HTML contained within a given element, or innerText to get the text inside an element (sans HTML markup).

See Also

1. outerHTML - Javascript Property
2. Javascript Reference - Elements

You can get the 'outer-html' by cloning the element, adding it to an empty,'offstage' container, and reading the container's innerHTML.

This example takes an optional second parameter.

Call document.getHTML(element, true) to include the element's descendents.

document.getHTML= function(who, deep){
    if(!who || !who.tagName) return '';
    var txt, ax, el= document.createElement("div");
    el.appendChild(who.cloneNode(false));
    txt= el.innerHTML;
    if(deep){
        ax= txt.indexOf('>')+1;
        txt= txt.substring(0, ax)+who.innerHTML+ txt.substring(ax);
    }
    el= null;
    return txt;
}