How to get the DOM elements with a colon in the tag

Question

I have an element like

<namespace:my_name>Some <b>html</b> here!</namespace:my_name>

How do I get the jQuery element? This doesnt work:

var el = $('namespace:my_name');
alert(el.length) // = 0

Is giving the element 'ID' is possible? – Tomzan Aug 27 '13 at 13:54 — Tomzan, Aug 27 '13 at 13:54
Thanks @BradChristie. Question can be locked! – Xaver Aug 27 '13 at 13:55 — Xaver, Aug 27 '13 at 13:55

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 27 '13 at 13:55

3

Escape the colon, it has a special meaning in CSS selectors

 $('namespace\\:my_name');

answered Aug 27 '13 at 13:55

Prinzhorn

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Satpal · Answer 2 · 2013-08-27T13:56:37.937

2

You have to escape :, so try this

 $("namespace\\:my_name")

From reference

To use any of the meta-characters ( such as !"#$%&'()*+,./:;<=>?@[]^`{|}~ ) as a literal part of a name, it must be escaped with with two backslashes: \.

Visit Selectors

edited Aug 27 '13 at 13:56

answered Aug 27 '13 at 13:55

Satpal

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score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 27 '13 at 13:55

Check out the jQuery documentation for selectors. You must escape the selector with two backslashes like so:

$('namespace\\:my_name');

This is what is known as a literal. There are several other characters that can also be literals, they are:

!"#$%&'()*+,./:;<=>?@[\]^`{|}~

How to get the DOM elements with a colon in the tag

3 Answers3