Question

I am not familiar with the below syntax. What is the purpose of adding the object?

selectIt = $('<div />', {text : $this.attr('title')});

Answer 1

The code in your question body creates a div node, settings text (i.e. its inner HTML) to the value of $this.attr('title'). The div node will be assigned to the selectIt variable, but is not yet appended to any part of the DOM.

The code in your question title is also valid, except for the unclosed string. It selects the element with the id myID, searching only within the DOM node obj. Passing a context node is superfluous when selecting by ID, seeing as ID’s are unique in the document, and selecting by ID is quick enough, but for other elements, it can be a useful way to add precision, and not have to search the entire document.

Note the difference between passing a bit of HTML, which will instruct jQuery to create the matching node tree, so that you may append it to the DOM, or passing a selector, which will instruct jQuery to find the matching nodes within the current DOM.

$('<div />') // create a div
$('div') // find a div