Get element inside element by class and ID - JavaScript

Well, first you need to select the elements with a function like getElementById.

var targetDiv = document.getElementById("foo").getElementsByClassName("bar")[0];

getElementById only returns one node, but getElementsByClassName returns a node list. Since there is only one element with that class name (as far as I can tell), you can just get the first one (that's what the [0] is for—it's just like an array).

Then, you can change the html with .textContent.

targetDiv.textContent = "Goodbye world!";

var targetDiv = document.getElementById("foo").getElementsByClassName("bar")[0];
targetDiv.textContent = "Goodbye world!";

<div id="foo">
    <div class="bar">
        Hello world!
    </div>
</div>

You can do it like this:

var list = document.getElementById("foo").getElementsByClassName("bar");
if (list && list.length > 0) {
    list[0].innerHTML = "Goodbye world!";
}

or, if you want to do it with with less error checking and more brevity, it can be done in one line like this:

document.getElementById("foo").getElementsByClassName("bar")[0].innerHTML = "Goodbye world!";

In explanation:

1. You get the element with id="foo".
2. You then find the objects that are contained within that object that have class="bar".
3. That returns an array-like nodeList, so you reference the first item in that nodeList
4. You can then set the innerHTML of that item to change its contents.

Caveats: some older browsers don't support getElementsByClassName (e.g. older versions of IE). That function can be shimmed into place if missing.

This is where I recommend using a library that has built-in CSS3 selector support rather than worrying about browser compatibility yourself (let someone else do all the work). If you want just a library to do that, then Sizzle will work great. In Sizzle, this would be be done like this:

Sizzle("#foo .bar")[0].innerHTML = "Goodbye world!";

jQuery has the Sizzle library built-in and in jQuery, this would be:

$("#foo .bar").html("Goodbye world!");

If this needs to work in IE 7 or lower you need to remember that getElementsByClassName does not exist in all browsers. Because of this you can create your own getElementsByClassName or you can try this.

var fooDiv = document.getElementById("foo");

for (var i = 0, childNode; i <= fooDiv.childNodes.length; i ++) {
    childNode = fooDiv.childNodes[i];
    if (/bar/.test(childNode.className)) {
        childNode.innerHTML = "Goodbye world!";
    }
}