jquery parse xml for multiple tags

Question

I want to get multiple tags from an XML document. I looked at this question which essentially gets sub-elements of one tag, whereas I want all the tags. Using the same example XML (replicated below):

var data = 
"<root>
    <instructions>Some ins text.</instructions>
    <options>
       <option>1.png</option>
       <option>2.png</option>
       <option>3.png</option>
       <option>4.png</option>
    </options>
    <noOfOptions>4</noOfOptions>
</root>";

How do I get the values for "instructions", "options" and "noOfOptions"?

I could just repeat the code three times like this:

xml = $.parseXML(data),
$data = $( xml ),
$options = $data.find("option"); // get all option nodes

xml = $.parseXML(data),
$data = $( xml ),
$instructions = $xml.find("instructions"); // get instructions

xml = $.parseXML(data),
$data = $( xml ),
$noOfOptions = $xml.find("noOfOptions"); // get noOfOptions

But that doesn't seem right. Is there a correct (and more efficient) way to do this? I think the .each function has something to do with it, but don't really understand how to use it.

Answer 1

var data = 
"<root>\
    <instructions>Some ins text.</instructions>\
    <options>\
       <option>1.png</option>\
       <option>2.png</option>\
       <option>3.png</option>\
       <option>4.png</option>\
    </options>\
    <noOfOptions>4</noOfOptions>\
</root>";


var xml = $.parseXML(data);
var $data = $( xml );

var instructions = $data.find("instructions").text();
var options = [];
$data.find("option").each(function(){
  options.push($(this).text());
});

console.log("instructions: " + instructions);
console.log("options: ", options);

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>