empty selector
Description: Select all elements that have no children (including text nodes).
version added: 1.0jQuery( ":empty" )
This is the inverse of :parent
.
One important thing to note with :empty (and :parent) is that child elements include text nodes.
The W3C recommends that the <p>
element have at least one child node, even if that child is merely text (see https://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/text.html#edef-P). Some other elements, on the other hand, are empty (i.e. have no children) by definition: <input>, <img>, <br>, and <hr>, for example.
Example:
Finds all elements that are empty - they don't have child elements or text.
<!doctype html> <html lang="en"> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <title>empty demo</title> <style> td { text-align: center; } </style> <script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.10.2.js"></script> </head> <body> <table border="1"> <tr><td>TD #0</td><td></td></tr> <tr><td>TD #2</td><td></td></tr> <tr><td></td><td>TD#5</td></tr> </table> <script> $( "td:empty" ) .text( "Was empty!" ) .css( "background", "rgb(255,220,200)" ); </script> </body> </html>