Description: Get all preceding siblings of each element in the set of matched elements, optionally filtered by a selector.
.prevAll( [ selector ] )
version added: 1.2
selector
A string containing a selector expression to match elements against.
Given a jQuery object that represents a set of DOM elements, the .prevAll() method allows us to search through the predecessors of these elements in the DOM tree and construct a new jQuery object from the matching elements.
The method optionally accepts a selector expression of the same type that we can pass to the $() function. If the selector is supplied, the elements will be filtered by testing whether they match it.
Consider a page with a simple list on it:
<ul> <li>list item 1</li> <li>list item 2</li> <li class="third-item">list item 3</li> <li>list item 4</li> <li>list item 5</li> </ul>
If we begin at the third item, we can find the elements which come before it:
$('li.third-item').prevAll().css('background-color', 'red');
The result of this call is a red background behind items 1 and 2. Since we do not supply a selector expression, these preceding elements are unequivocally included as part of the object. If we had supplied one, the elements would be tested for a match before they were included.
Examples
Example 1
Locate all the divs in front of the last div and give them a class.Example 1 - Full source:
<!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript"> $(document).ready(function(){ $("div:last").prevAll().addClass("before"); }); </script> <style> div { width:70px; height:70px; background:#abc; border:2px solid black; margin:10px; float:left; } div.before { border-color: red; } </style> </head> <body> <div></div> <div></div> <div></div> <div></div> </body> </html>
Was this information helpful?
