.children()
Categories: Tree Traversal
.children( [ selector ] )Returns: jQuery
Description: Get the children of each element in the set of matched elements, optionally filtered by a selector.
-
.children( [ selector ] )
version added: 1.0selector A string containing a selector expression to match elements against.
Given a jQuery object that represents a set of DOM elements, the .children()
method allows us to search through the immediate children of these elements in the DOM tree and construct a new jQuery object from the matching elements. The .find()
and .children()
methods are similar, except that the latter only travels a single level down the DOM tree. Note also that like most jQuery methods, .children()
does not return text nodes; to get all children including text and comment nodes, use .contents()
.
The method optionally accepts a selector expression of the same type that we can pass to the $()
function. If the selector is supplied, the elements will be filtered by testing whether they match it.
Consider a page with a basic nested list on it:
<ul class="level-1"> <li class="item-i">I</li> <li class="item-ii">II <ul class="level-2"> <li class="item-a">A</li> <li class="item-b">B <ul class="level-3"> <li class="item-1">1</li> <li class="item-2">2</li> <li class="item-3">3</li> </ul> </li> <li class="item-c">C</li> </ul> </li> <li class="item-iii">III</li> </ul>
If we begin at the level-2 list, we can find its children:
$('ul.level-2').children().css('background-color', 'red');
The result of this call is a red background behind items A, B, and C. Since we do not supply a selector expression, all of the children are part of the returned jQuery object. If we had supplied one, only the matching items among these three would be included.
-
Find all children of the clicked element.
HTML:
<div id="container"> <div> <p>This <span>is the <em>way</em> we</span> write <em>the</em> demo,</p> </div> <div> <a href="#"><b>w</b>rit<b>e</b></a> the <span>demo,</span> <button>write the</button> demo, </div> <div> This <span>the way we <em>write</em> the <em>demo</em> so</span> <input type="text" value="early" /> in </div> <p> <span>t</span>he <span>m</span>orning. <span id="results">Found <span>0</span> children in <span>TAG</span>.</span> </p> </div>
CSS:
body { font-size:16px; font-weight:bolder; } div { width:130px; height:82px; margin:10px; float:left; border:1px solid blue; padding:4px; } #container { width:auto; height:105px; margin:0; float:none; border:none; } .hilite { border-color:red; } #results { display:block; color:red; } p { margin:10px; border:1px solid transparent; } span { color:blue; border:1px solid transparent; } input { width:100px; } em { border:1px solid transparent; } a { border:1px solid transparent; } b { border:1px solid transparent; } button { border:1px solid transparent; }
Code:
$("#container").click(function (e) { $("*").removeClass("hilite"); var $kids = $(e.target).children(); var len = $kids.addClass("hilite").length; $("#results span:first").text(len); $("#results span:last").text(e.target.tagName); e.preventDefault(); return false; });
-
Find all children of each div.
HTML:
<p>Hello (this is a paragraph)</p> <div><span>Hello Again (this span is a child of the a div)</span></div> <p>And <span>Again</span> (in another paragraph)</p> <div>And One Last <span>Time</span> (most text directly in a div)</div>
CSS:
body { font-size:16px; font-weight:bolder; } span { color:blue; } p { margin:5px 0; }
Code:
$("div").children().css("border-bottom", "3px double red");
-
Find all children with a class "selected" of each div.
HTML:
<div> <span>Hello</span> <p class="selected">Hello Again</p> <div class="selected">And Again</div> <p>And One Last Time</p> </div>
CSS:
body { font-size:16px; font-weight:bolder; } p { margin:5px 0; }
Code:
$("div").children(".selected").css("color", "blue");