empty selector
Description: Select all elements that have no children (including text nodes).
jQuery(':empty')
version added: 1.0
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 http://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.
Examples
Finds all elements that are empty - they don't have child elements or text.Full source:
<!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script> <script> $(document).ready(function(){ $("td:empty").text("Was empty!"). css('background', 'rgb(255,220,200)'); }); </script> <style> td { text-align:center; } </style> </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> </body> </html>
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