Get the string representation of a DOM node

Javascript: I have the DOM representation of a node (element or document) and I'm looking for the string representation of it. E.g.,

var el = document.createElement("p");
el.appendChild(document.createTextNode("Test"));

should yield:

get_string(el) == "<p>Test</p>";

I have the strong feeling, that I'm missing something trivially simple, but I just don't find a method that works in IE, FF, Safari and Opera. Therefore, outerHTML is no option.

You can create a temporary parent node, and get the innerHTML content of it:

var el = document.createElement("p");
el.appendChild(document.createTextNode("Test"));

var tmp = document.createElement("div");
tmp.appendChild(el);
console.log(tmp.innerHTML); // <p>Test</p>

EDIT: Please see answer below about outerHTML. el.outerHTML should be all that is needed.

What you're looking for is 'outerHTML', but wee need a fallback coz it's not compatible with old browsers.

var getString = (function() {
  var DIV = document.createElement("div");

  if ('outerHTML' in DIV)
    return function(node) {
      return node.outerHTML;
    };

  return function(node) {
    var div = DIV.cloneNode();
    div.appendChild(node.cloneNode(true));
    return div.innerHTML;
  };

})();

// getString(el) == "<p>Test</p>"

You'll find my jQuery plugin here: Get selected element's outer HTML

I dont think you need any complicated script for this. Just use

get_string=(el)=>el.outerHTML;