How to clone an element and insert it multiple times in one go?

Question

How can I clone an element and insert it 5 times right after each other? This of course is the base statement:

$('.col').clone().insertAfter('.col');

Here's what I need to get:

<div class="col" id="original"> </div>
<div class="col"> </div>
<div class="col"> </div>
<div class="col"> </div>
<div class="col"> </div>
<div class="col"> </div>

The selector doesn't need to be using an unique id, it can also be a class selector.

I could just repeat the base statement four times but there must be a more elegant way?

Solution 1

Use a loop, like this:

$(document).ready(function() {
    var e = $('.col');
    for (var i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
      e.clone().insertAfter(e);
    }
});

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

<div class="col">clone me...</div>

---

Put the element in a variable before the loop, otherwise you will run into problems when you get several elements with the same id were your selector to be based on an id (e.g. $("#col1")).

If your selector is using a class, it doesn't cause the same conflicts as duplicate id's, but you should still put the element in a variable before the loop, otherwise you will end up with a lot more elements than you want.

Solution 2

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.7.2.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
 $(document).ready(function() {
    $('.col').each(function(){
        $(this).clone().insertAfter(this);
    }); 
  });  
</script>
 <div class="col">First div </div>
 <div class="col">2nd </div>
 <div class="col">3rd </div>
 <div class="col">4th </div>
 <div class="col">5th </div>

is this you looking for?

Solution 3

I wrote a jQuery plug-in:

$.fn.multiply = function(numCopies) {
    var newElements = this.clone();
    for(var i = 1; i < numCopies; i++)
    {
        newElements = newElements.add(this.clone());
    }
    return newElements;
};

This code snippet builds the elements as a jQuery set, instead of adding to the DOM multiple times which can be slow.

Usage:

var li = $('<li>Test</li>');
$('ul').append(li.multiply(4));

So, for your example:

$('.col').multiply(5).insertAfter('.col');

Comments

[uriah]

Thanks Guffa this is perfect!