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Testing for html lang attribute with jQuery

I'm using the following code to check for the lang attribute on the <html> element:

if( $("html:lang(en)") ){
  // Do something
}

I've noticed that this doesn't work consistently. For instance, when lang="fr", or when no language attribute is defined, the code still gets executed.

According to the jquery docs (https://api.jquery.com/lang-selector/), it should work. How come this isn't the case? And most importantly: How do I check which lang attribute is used in a consistent manner?

Solution

  • The $("html:lang(en)") would be always a truthy value since it returns a jQuery object. Instead, you need to check length property of returned object to check the element existence.

    if($("html:lang(en)").length){
  //          here --^^^^^^^^--
  // Do something
}