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jqueryfindparent-childselectorparent

What is equivalent to parent() when looking for any ancestor

When I'm looking for children of an element I use the following lines.

var myself = $(donkey);
var myProblems = myself.children("*");
var notMyProblems = myself.find("*");

However, when going in the opposite direction, I can use the line below but I haven't found the recurrent equivalent to the find method. Isn't there such thing?

var myself = $(donkey);
var problemCreator = myself.parent();

As an example, I'd like to find the table element that contains a row that contains a divisor that contains a span that contains a button that was clicked. I can do something like this.

var clickaroo = $(event.target);
var holder = clickaroo.parent().parent().parent().parent().parent();

However, it looks ugly and is fragile, in case the button is nested in an unexpected or unforseen extra div or span. I'd like to use something like this.

var clickaroo = $(event.target);
var holder = clickaroo.superParent("table");

I've googlearched for it but got nada. Am I using wrong keywords or is there no such function?

Solution

  • The method you're looking for is closest().

    If you're trying to target elements of class findMe, you can use the following five methods.

    var self = $("#myMyselfAndI");
var oneLevelDown = self.children(".findMe");
var anyLevelDown = self.find(".findMe");
var oneLevelUp = self.parent();
var anyLevelUp = self.closest(".findMe");
var allUppwards = self.parents();