jQuery globally replace string, but not in the Title or Alt attributes

Question

I've written some jQuery that loops through all elements within a div and replaces and styles a specific string by just using and tags, which works fine and the code is this:

var regex = /some text/gi;
$(".container *").each(function () {
    $(this).html($(this).html().replace(regex, '<em><strong>Some</strong> Text</em>'));
});

The problem I have is that this also affects the text in all the Title and Alt attributes, which I don't want because they can't be styled and literally end up being displayed as Some Text.

I've tried storing the original Title/Alt values in variables before they're replaced then setting them back to their original values afterwards, but it seems that when the attribute values include the and tags they are completely inaccessible. I can't even remove them and add them back in, which seems really strange.

Can anyone tell me if there is any way around this please?

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 02 '13 at 13:23

0

Instead of $(this).html().replace, have you tried $(this).text().replace?

This way you only replace the actual text of the elements rather than all of the html.

answered Jul 02 '13 at 13:23

Anand Shah

180
5

Yeah, I've tried that, but it basically destroys everything so I'm left with an entire page of just plain text. – AlanPartridge Jul 02 '13 at 13:29
Ah sorry about that - this answer should do the trick: http://jsfiddle.net/elclanrs/fw6Pk/ – Anand Shah Jul 02 '13 at 15:05
And here's the original post: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9794851/find-text-string-in-jquery-and-make-it-bold – Anand Shah Jul 02 '13 at 15:14
Thanks for that, although I'm still unable to target every single element at once without it including the and tags. It works fine if I just target one specific element i.e. ,
,
etc, but when I try to target all of them by using something like ".container *" the direct child elements are replaced OK, but sub children get messed up. The same thing happens when using my original method. Do you know if there's a way to target everything including sub children or will I just have to do each one separately?
– AlanPartridge Jul 03 '13 at 08:28

jQuery globally replace string, but not in the Title or Alt attributes

1 Answers1