Selectors

Borrowing from CSS 1–3, and then adding its own, jQuery offers a powerful set of tools for matching a set of elements in a document.

If you wish to use any of the meta-characters (#;&,.+*~':"!^$[]()=>|/ ) as a literal part of a name, you must escape the character with two backslashes: \\. For example, if you have an an input with name="names[]", you can use the selector $("input[name=names\\[\\]]").

All Selector (“*”)
Basic
Selects all elements.
:animated Selector
Basic Filter
Select all elements that are in the progress of an animation at the time the selector is run.
Attribute Contains Prefix Selector [name|=value]
Attribute
Selects elements that have the specified attribute with a value either equal to a given string or starting with that string followed by a hyphen (-).
Attribute Contains Selector [name*=value]
Attribute
Selects elements that have the specified attribute with a value containing the a given substring.
Attribute Contains Word Selector [name~=value]
Attribute
Selects elements that have the specified attribute with a value containing a given word, delimited by spaces.
Attribute Ends With Selector [name$=value]
Attribute
Selects elements that have the specified attribute with a value ending exactly with a given string.
Attribute Equals Selector [name=value]
Attribute
Selects elements that have the specified attribute with a value exactly equal to a certain value.
Attribute Not Equal Selector [name!=value]
Attribute
Select elements that either don't have the specified attribute, or do have the specified attribute but not with a certain value.
Attribute Starts With Selector [name^=value]
Attribute
Selects elements that have the specified attribute with a value beginning exactly with a given string.
:button Selector
Form
Selects all button elements and elements of type button.
:checkbox Selector
Form
Selects all elements of type checkbox.
:checked Selector
Form
Matches all elements that are checked.
Child Selector (“parent > child”)
Hierarchy
Selects all direct child elements specified by "child" of elements specified by "parent".
Class Selector (“.class”)
Basic
Selects all elements with the given class.
:contains() Selector
Content Filter
Select all elements that contain the specified text.
Descendant Selector (“ancestor descendant”)
Hierarchy
Selects all elements that are descendants of a given ancestor.
:disabled Selector
Form
Selects all elements that are disabled.
Element Selector (“element”)
Basic
Selects all elements with the given tag name.
:empty Selector
Content Filter
Select all elements that have no children (including text nodes).
:enabled Selector
Form
Selects all elements that are enabled.
:eq() Selector
Basic Filter
Select the element at index n within the matched set.
:even Selector
Basic Filter
Selects even elements, zero-indexed. See also odd.
:file Selector
Form
Selects all elements of type file.
:first-child Selector
Child Filter
Selects all elements that are the first child of their parent.
:first Selector
Basic Filter
Selects the first matched element.
:gt() Selector
Basic Filter
Select all elements at an index greater than index within the matched set.
Has Attribute Selector [name]
Attribute
Selects elements that have the specified attribute, with any value.
:has() Selector
Content Filter
Selects elements which contain at least one element that matches the specified selector.
:header Selector
Basic Filter
Selects all elements that are headers, like h1, h2, h3 and so on.
:hidden Selector
Visibility Filter
Selects all elements that are hidden.
ID Selector (“#id”)
Basic
Selects a single element with the given id attribute.
:image Selector
Form
Selects all elements of type image.
:input Selector
Form
Selects all input, textarea, select and button elements.
:last-child Selector
Child Filter
Selects all elements that are the last child of their parent.
:last Selector
Basic Filter
Selects the last matched element.
:lt() Selector
Basic Filter
Select all elements at an index less than index within the matched set.
Multiple Attribute Selector [name=value][name2=value2]
Attribute
Matches elements that match all of the specified attribute filters.
Multiple Selector (“selector1, selector2, selectorN”)
Basic
Selects the combined results of all the specified selectors.
Next Adjacent Selector (“prev + next”)
Hierarchy
Selects all next elements matching "next" that are immediately preceded by a sibling "prev".
Next Siblings Selector (“prev ~ siblings”)
Hierarchy
Selects all sibling elements that follow after the "prev" element, have the same parent, and match the filtering "siblings" selector.
:not() Selector
Basic Filter
Selects all elements that do not match the given selector.
:nth-child Selector
Child Filter
Selects all elements that are the nth-child of their parent.
:odd Selector
Basic Filter
Selects odd elements, zero-indexed. See also even.
:only-child Selector
Child Filter
Selects all elements that are the only child of their parent.
:parent Selector
Content Filter
Select all elements that are the parent of another element, including text nodes.
:password Selector
Form
Selects all elements of type password.
:radio Selector
Form
Selects all elements of type radio.
:reset Selector
Form
Selects all elements of type reset.
:selected Selector
Form
Selects all elements that are selected.
:submit Selector
Form
Selects all elements of type submit.
:text Selector
Form
Selects all elements of type text.
:visible Selector
Visibility Filter
Selects all elements that are visible.

jQuery API

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