Question

I have bits of horrible code I have to deal with

...
<div class="container">
   ...
    <tr>
    <td width="100" height="50">
         <a class="swaps"><img src="http://www.blah.jpg" alt="Some Title" id="1"></a></span></td>
    </tr>
   <tr>
    <td width="100" height="50">
        <a class="swaps"><img src="http://www.blah2.jpg" alt="Another title" id="2"></a></span></td>
    </tr>
</div>

If I use

var thisone = $("#container .swaps:first")

to select the first one (with id 1) why do I have trouble selecting

thisone.next()?

Answer 1

The HTML is the real one? I don’t see any element with id “container” and you’re doing

$("#container .swaps:first")

Also, if it’s the real HTML, you should fix it a little (close the img tag, and add the opening tag for the span before the </TD>)

Supposing that your HTML is OK this should work for your scenario.

var thisone = $("#container .swaps:first");
thisone.children();

The IMG is not sibling of the anchor, is a child.