I'm creating a tree control and I'm attempting to use a parent element as a template for its children. To this end I'm using the element.cloneNode(true) method to deep clone the parent element. However when I insert the cloned element into the DOM it is missing certain inner elements despite having an outerHTML value identical to its parent. Surprisingly I observe the same behavior is in IE, Firefox, and Chrome leading me to believe that it is by design.
This is the HTML for the node I'm attempting to clone.
<SPAN class=node><A class=nodeLink href="/SparklerRestService2.aspx?q={0}" name=http://dbpedia.org/data/Taylor_Swift.rdf>
<IMG class=nodeIcon alt="
Taylor Swift" src="images/node.png"><SPAN class=nodeText>Taylor Swift</SPAN></A><SPAN class=nodeDescription>Taylor Swift is a swell gall who is realy great.</SPAN></SPAN>
Once I've cloned the node using cloneNode(true) I examine the outerHTML property and find that it is indeed identical to the original.
<SPAN class=node><A class=nodeLink href="/SparklerRestService2.aspx?q={0}" name=http://dbpedia.org/data/Taylor_Swift.rdf><IMG class=nodeIcon alt="
Taylor Swift" src="images/node.png"><SPAN class=nodeText>Taylor Swift</SPAN></A><SPAN class=nodeDescription>Taylor Swift is a swell gall who is realy great.</SPAN></SPAN>
However when I insert it into the DOM and inspect the result using FireBug I find that the element has been transformed:
<span class="node" style="top: 0px; left: 0px;"<a class=nodeLink href="/SparklerRestService2.aspx?q={0}" name=http://dbpedia.org/data/Taylor_Swift.rdf>Taylor Swift</a><span class="nodeDescription">It's great</span></span>
Notice that the grandchildren of the node (the image tag and the span tag surrounding "
Taylor Swift") are missing, although strangely the great grandchild "
Taylor Swift" text node has made it into the tree.
Can anyone shed some light on this behavior? Why would nodes disappear after insertion into the DOM, and why am I seeing the same result in all three major browser engines?
