Question

I have a tr element

$('tr')

I need to select several first children (td in this case).

How can I do this?
:nth-child() can select even or odd elements. :eq() can select only one.

So the only way is

$('tr td:eq(0), tr td:eq(1), ... tr td:eq(n-1)')

Is there any shortcut?

Answer 1

$('tr td:lt(8)')

Use the less than selector

Also, note the comment in the docs

Because :lt() is a jQuery extension
and not part of the CSS specification,
queries using :lt() cannot take
advantage of the performance boost
provided by the native DOM
querySelectorAll() method. For better
performance in modern browsers, use
$(“your-pure-css-selector”).slice(0,
index) instead.