How manieth element is this?

Question

How do I know the how manieth an element is? (using Javascript or jQuery) Suppose I have one UL with multiple LI within, how do I know wheter the LI clicked is the 4th or the 6th?

$('li').click(function(){
    nth = $(this).nth();
    alert(nth);
});

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 19 '12 at 19:46

6

You can use jQuery's .index for this.

$("li").click(function() {
    var nth = $("ul li").index($(this));
    alert(nth);
});

Live example

answered Jun 19 '12 at 19:46

Alex Turpin

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The advantage of this answer above the answers using $(this).index() is that it also works correctly if some of the children of the ul element are not li elements. – Confusion Jun 19 '12 at 19:53
@Confusion - If the ul had direct children that weren't li elements, would they be valid elements? https://developer.mozilla.org/en/HTML/Element/ul I guess that doesn't change the fact that some browsers would consider them in the index anyway. – Kevin B Jun 19 '12 at 20:00
@KevinB - I thought you were allowed to nest lists directly, but it seems that has been deprecated, as discussed in e.g. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5899337/proper-way-to-make-html-nested-list – Confusion Jun 19 '12 at 20:46

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 19 '12 at 19:46

2

$('li').click(function(){
    alert($(this).index());
});

answered Jun 19 '12 at 19:46

Dale

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score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 19 '12 at 19:44

1

you could try a nth = $(this).prevAll().count() + 1

answered Jun 19 '12 at 19:44

Rodolfo

4,155
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score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 19 '12 at 19:45

1

You could use the index method:

var nth = $(this).index()+1;

answered Jun 19 '12 at 19:45

Kevin B

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score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 19 '12 at 19:47

0

I do something like

$('li').each(function (i) {
  $(this).data("pos", i);
}).click(function() {
  var nth = $(this).data("pos");
  alert(nth);
});

Invariably, I end up needing the position for other things, so I save it off.

answered Jun 19 '12 at 19:47

mpdonadio

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How manieth element is this?

5 Answers5