How to create dynamic breadcrumbs using JavaScript?

Last Updated : 08 Sep, 2022

In this article, we will see how to create dynamic breadcrumbs using JavaScript.

A dynamic breadcrumb allows us to navigate to different pages within the navigational hierarchy, and thus we can organize various pages of the website in a hierarchical manner just like a folder-like structure.

Approach:

The following example is implemented using HTML and JavaScript.

HTML lists like <ol>,<ul>,<li> are used to create the navigation links.

Breadcrumbs dynamic navigation is implemented using various JavaScript functions like jQuery prepend(),clone() and click() methods. On click of each navigation link <a> , the child nodes are appended to its parent along with the "GeeksforGeeks /" link in the bottom div with the class display. This whole navigation hierarchy is shown in the last HTML div using jQuery html() method.

Example: The following code demonstrates the above approach.

HTML

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
<head>
  
   <script src=
   "https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.5.1/jquery.min.js">
   </script>
   
</head>
<style>
   body{
     background-color:white;
   }
  .display{
    background-color:red;  
  }
   
</style>
<body>
  <h2 style="color:green;">GeeksforGeeks</h2>   
   
<div class="topics">
   <ol>
       <li><a href="#"><b>Searching</b></a>
         <ul>
          <li><a href="#">Linear Search</a></li>
          <li><a href="#">Binary Search</a></li>
         </ul>
       </li>
      <li><a href="#"><b>Sorting</b></a>
        <ul>
            <li><a href="#">Bubble Sort</a></li>
            <li><a href="#">Merge Sort</a>
                <ul>
                    <li><a href="#"><i>Recursive Merge Sort</i></a></li>
                    <li><a href="#"><i>Iterative Merge Sort</i></a></li>
                </ul>
            </li>
            <li><a href="#">Selection Sort</a></li>
            <li><a href="#">Insertion Sort</a>  
        </ul>
     </li>
     <li><a href="#"><b>Tree</b></a>
      <ul>
          <li><a href="#">Binary Tree</a></li>
          <li><a href=" #">Binary Search Tree</a></li>
        </ul>
     </li>

  </ol>
</div>

  <div class="display">
    <div class="syllabus">
      <a href="#">GeeksforGeeks / </a>
    </div>
  </div> 
        
  
<script type="text/javascript">

   $('.topics a').on('click', function() {
    //selecting the syllabus class 
      $select = $('<div class="syllabus"></div>');
      $(this).parents('li').each(function(n, li) {
         //Adding / to each anchor tag of li
          $select.prepend(' / ',$(li).children('a').clone());
      });
    // Displaying the hierarchical order of pages.
    $('.display').html( 
      $select.prepend('<a href="#syllabus">GeeksforGeeks</a>'));    
}) 

</script>
</body>
  
</html>