Description: Reduce the set of matched elements to the first in the set.
.first()
version added: 1.4
Given a jQuery object that represents a set of DOM elements, the .first() method constructs a new jQuery object from the first matching element.
Consider a page with a simple list on it:
<ul> <li>list item 1</li> <li>list item 2</li> <li>list item 3</li> <li>list item 4</li> <li>list item 5</li> </ul>
We can apply this method to the set of list items:
$('li').first().css('background-color', 'red');
The result of this call is a red background for the first item.
- list item 1
- list item 2
- list item 3
- list item 4
- list item 5
Example
Highlight the first span in a paragraph.Full source
Highlight the first span in a paragraph.
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<style>.highlight{background-color: yellow}</style>
<script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">
$(document).ready(function(){
$("p span").first().addClass('highlight');
});
</script>
</head>
<body>
<p><span>Look:</span> <span>This is some text in a paragraph.</span> <span>This is a note about it.</span></p>
</body>
</html>
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