Categories

:first Selector

Categories: jQuery Extensions | Basic Filter

jQuery(':first')

Description: Selects the first matched element.

  • jQuery(':first')

    version added: 1.0

The :first pseudo-class is equivalent to :eq(0). It could also be written as :lt(1). While this matches only a single element, :first-child can match more than one: One for each parent.

Note:

Because :first is a jQuery extension and not part of the CSS specification, queries using :first cannot take advantage of the performance boost provided by the native DOM querySelectorAll() method. To achieve the best performance when using :first to select elements, first select the elements using a pure CSS selector, then use .filter(":first").

Note:

Selected elements are in the order of their appearance in the document.
  • Finds the first table row.

    HTML:
    <table>
        <tr><td>Row 1</td></tr>
        <tr><td>Row 2</td></tr>
    
        <tr><td>Row 3</td></tr>
      </table>
    CSS:
    
    
      td { color:blue; font-weight:bold; }
      
    Code:
    $("tr:first").css("font-style", "italic");