Question

function getSelectedCopyDates() {
            var arr = new Array();
                //for every row that has a checked checkbox
                $("tr").has(".noteCheckBox:checked").each(function (i) {
                    if ($(this).id !== "checkAllNotes"){//since this doesn't have a "abbr=..." it breaks the code below "# syntax error"
                        //push the value of column(FName, LName) into the array 
                        arr.push($("#" + this.id + "> td[abbr='EventDate'] > div").text());
                    }
                });
            return arr;
        }

Answer 1

If by “cell value” you’re just looking to get the text inside the <td> then you could do something like this:

HTML:

<table>
    <tr>
        <td align="center" abbr="FName, LName">RAWR</td>
    </tr>        
</table>​

jQuery:

$("td[abbr='FName, LName']").text();

You can use jQuery’s .text() method to get the value within the given element.

EDIT:

Saw you needed to get only the <td>s where they contain checkboxes that are checked, so this may work for you:

$("td[abbr='FName, LName'] > input:checked").parent().text(); 

Find all the td[abbr='FName, LName' that contain an input that is checked, then get the text of the that elements parent.

EXAMPLE

//You won't need the on change event for you code. I only added it here to show you what happens when there are values and when there are no values.

$("input").on("change", function(){
    var arr = new Array();

    //for every row that has a checked checkbox
    $("tr").has(".noteCheckBox:checked").each(function(i){
       //push the value of column 5 (FName, LName) into the array 
       arr.push($("#"+this.id + "> td > div.c5").text());       
    });
    //Print the array to the console.
    console.log(arr);
});​

UPDATED EXAMPLE

EDIT:

your function should be:

function getSelectedInvestigatorNames() {
   var arr = new Array();

   //for every row that has a checked checkbox
   $("tr").has(".noteCheckBox:checked").each(function(i){
      //push the value of column 5 (FName, LName) into the array 
      arr.push($("#"+this.id + "> td[abbr='FName, LName'] > div").text());       
   });

   return arr;
}