How to use .find() to tell if some element has a child or not?

Question

for example I have a div <div id="myrules"></div>

If i use

alert($("#myrules").find("if"))

it alerts [object object] , even though the div is empty, so the question is how to tell if the child exists or not using .find()?

http://jsfiddle.net/prollygeek/agG3d/

are you looking for child elements or any children including non empty text nodes — Arun P Johny, Dec 07 '13 at 04:45
There are countless duplicates; one possible duplicate is [Is there an "exists" function for jQuery?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/31044/is-there-an-exists-function-for-jquery). — Kevin Ji, Dec 07 '13 at 04:47
FWIW, using `console` functions is superior to alert since they are able to print out things like objects and multiple arguments much clearer. If you used `console.log($('blah')) you would see that what was returned would be an empty "array-like" object since that is what jQuery does is [create a collection of DOM objects](http://api.jquery.com/Types/#jQuery). — gillyspy, Dec 07 '13 at 05:10

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 07 '13 at 04:43

4

You can use $('#myrules').find('if').length

answered Dec 07 '13 at 04:43

Rob

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LJᛃ · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-15T23:27:58.420

2

jQuery returns a set of matched elements, this set is empty if no elements were selected, so you need to check against the length property of the returned value.

// "length" of the returned collection is 0
if(jQuery('#myelem').find('.idontexist').length)
  alert("element found");

Also to be found here: http://api.jquery.com/jQuery/

edited Jan 15 '14 at 23:27

answered Dec 07 '13 at 04:43

LJᛃ

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I've added an example. – LJᛃ Dec 07 '13 at 04:50
1

Ok. Just one thing, that alerts nothing found if something is found. – Popnoodles Dec 07 '13 at 04:51

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 07 '13 at 04:47

You can check children of an element like:

HTML

<div id="myrules">
    <div class="ch">1</div>
    <div class="ch">2</div>
    <p>3</p>
</div>

jQuery:

alert($("#myrules").children().length) // Alerts total children exists

Also you can check specific total children in an element:

alert($("#myrules").children('div').length)
alert($("#myrules").children('p').length)

http://jsfiddle.net/agG3d/1/

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 07 '13 at 04:57

1

Try this:

alert($($("#myrules").find("#am")).length);

answered Dec 07 '13 at 04:57

Musfiqur rahman

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score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 07 '13 at 05:14

1

Try this

if($('#myrules').children('div').length > 0){}

answered Dec 07 '13 at 05:14

Mr.G

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How to use .find() to tell if some element has a child or not?

5 Answers5