Question

How do you convert a jQuery object into a string?

Answer 1

I assume you’re asking for the full HTML string. If that’s the case, something like this will do the trick:

$('<div>').append($('#item-of-interest').clone()).html();  

This is explained in more depth here, but essentially you make a new node to wrap the item of interest, do the manipulations, remove it, and grab the HTML.

If you’re just after a string representation, then go with new String(obj).

Update

I wrote the original answer in 2009. As of 2014, most major browsers now support outerHTML as a native property (see, for example, Firefox and Internet Explorer), so you can do:

$('#item-of-interest').prop('outerHTML');