Question

I am sure there is a simple solution.

The starting scenario was the following.
I create a <select> element and populate it dynamycally:

function CreateDropDown(name, id, optionList)
{
    var combo = $("<select></select>").attr("id", id).attr("name", name);

    $.each(optionList, function (i, item) {
        combo.append("<option value='"+item.val+"'>" + item.el + "</option>");
    });

    return combo;
}

The aim was to extract the outerHTML. The following works right:

combo[0].outerHTML();

But I feel that indexing the array is very rough. At least in all that cases where the jQuery() function return a single element array.

Question

Whenever the jQuery() function return a single element array, is it possible to get the unique element without array indexing?

Demo

Answer 1

If you “feel that indexing the array is very rough”, you could write your own nice helper method. Something like a:

window.$$ = function(){
   return jQuery.apply(jQuery,arguments)[0];
}

Usage:

var combo = $$("<select></select>");
console.log( combo.outerHTML );