Programmer's Guide > Interfaces > W3C Element interface > setAttribute method
  
setAttribute method
Adds a new attribute. If an attribute with that name is already present in the element, its value is changed to be that of the value parameter. This value is a simple string; it is not parsed as it is being set. So any markup (such as syntax to be recognized as an entity reference) is treated as literal text, and needs to be appropriately escaped by the implementation when it is written out. In order to assign an attribute value that contains entity references, the user must create an Attr node plus any Text and EntityReference nodes, build the appropriate subtree, and use setAttributeNode to assign it as the value of an attribute.
To set an attribute with a qualified name and namespace URI, use the setAttributeNS method.
setAttribute(name, value)
Parameters
Stringname
The name of the attribute to create or alter.
Stringvalue
Value to set in string form.
Returns
void
Throws
DOMException
INVALID_CHARACTER_ERR: Raised if the specified name contains an illegal character.
NO_MODIFICATION_ALLOWED_ERR: Raised if this node is readonly.