Selecting a single element

It is very common that sometimes you need to select a single element on a page to perform some visual manipulation. This recipe will show you how to perform a targeted single element selection in D3 using CSS selector.

Getting ready

Open your local copy of the following file in your web browser:

https://github.com/NickQiZhu/d3-cookbook/blob/master/src/chapter2/single-selection.html

How to do it...

Let's select something (a paragraph element perhaps) and produce the classic "hello world" on screen.

<p id="target"></p> <!-- A -->

<script type="text/javascript">
    d3.select("p#target") // <-- B
    .text("Hello world!"); // <-- C
</script>

This recipe simply produces a Hello world! on your screen.

How it works...

The d3.select command is used to perform a single element selection in D3. This method accepts a string representing a valid CSS3 selector or an element object if you already have a reference to the element you want to select...