How to find out if an element contains only a £ sign with JQuery?

Question

Say I have 2 divs:

<div>&pound; 21.99</div>
<div>&pound;</div>

If I only want to select the div that contains the £ symbol only, how would I go about this?

I have tried:

if ($('div:contains("&pound;")').length > 0) 
{
   $(this).addClass("pound");
}

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 08 '09 at 02:38

4

I believe the problem is that the browser is transforming the HTML escape characters, so you need to look for the actual character... I tested this and it works

$(document).ready(function(){
 $('div').each(function(){
  if ($(this).html() == "£"){
   $(this).addClass("pound");
  }
 })
})

answered Oct 08 '09 at 02:38

Mottie

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This kind of makes sense.. `£` is a HTML escape sequence, not a Javascript one.. It seems sensible Javascript would see the actual pound symbol, although it would make sense either way I guess.. – dbr Oct 08 '09 at 03:05

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 08 '09 at 00:21

1

$('div:contains("&pound;")').each( function() {
     var text = $(this).html();
     if (text && text.match(/\s*&pound;\s*/)) {
        $(this).addClass('pound');
     }
});

answered Oct 08 '09 at 00:21

tvanfosson

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You might need to adjust the regular expression. It's possible that you'll have to search for the unicode value associated with the pound sign. Try stepping the code through the firefox/firebug debugger and looking at the values of the innerHTML of each of the divs. Remove the contains() if it doesn't seem to be selecting the divs you want so you can get a better idea of what javascript sees inside them. – tvanfosson Oct 08 '09 at 00:38

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:07

0

Try .filter.

I found another question on SO with pertinent info:

Regular expression field validation in jQuery

edited May 23 '17 at 12:07

Community

1
1

answered Oct 08 '09 at 00:17

Josh

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 08 '09 at 11:16

tvanfosson's code allows for whitespace either side of the £ sign, but the regular expression could do with a bit of modification:

$('div:contains("&pound;")').each( function() {
    var text = $(this).html();
    if (text && text.match(/^\s*&pound;\s*$/)) {
        $(this).addClass('pound');
        }
    });

note the '^' and '$' indicating the beginning and end of the string.

How to find out if an element contains only a £ sign with JQuery?

4 Answers4