Categories

All Selector ("*")

Categories: Basic

jQuery('*')

Description: Selects all elements.

  • jQuery('*')

    version added: 1.0

Caution: The all, or universal, selector is extremely slow, except when used by itself.

  • Finds every element (including head, body, etc) in the document.

    HTML:
    <div>DIV</div>
    
      <span>SPAN</span>
      <p>P <button>Button</button></p>
    CSS:
    
      h3 { margin: 0; }
      div,span,p {
        width: 80px;
        height: 40px;
        float:left;
        padding: 10px;
        margin: 10px;
        background-color: #EEEEEE;
      }
      
    Code:
    var elementCount = $("*").css("border","3px solid red").length;
    $("body").prepend("<h3>" + elementCount + " elements found</h3>");
  • A common way to select all elements is to find within document.body so elements like head, script, etc are left out.

    HTML:
    <div id="test">
      <div>DIV</div>
      <span>SPAN</span>
      <p>P <button>Button</button></p>
    </div>
    CSS:
    
      h3 { margin: 0; }
      div,span,p {
        width: 80px;
        height: 40px;
        float:left;
        padding: 10px;
        margin: 10px;
        background-color: #EEEEEE;
      }
      #test {
        width: auto; height: auto; background-color: transparent; 
      }
      
    Code:
    
    var elementCount = $("#test").find("*").css("border","3px solid red").length;
    $("body").prepend("<h3>" + elementCount + " elements found</h3>");