Question

I have the following table and would like to replace the string text of each 1st col with a link . So, the “Whatever” and “Whatever2” contents would be replaced with an according link .html contents.

How can I do this using jquery?

<table>
    <tr>
       <th>Name</th>
       <th>Start</th>
       <th>End</th>
    </tr>
    <tr>
       <td>Whatever</td>
       <td>3/14/2012</td>
       <td>3/31/2012</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
       <td>Whatever2</td>
       <td>3/15/2012</td>
       <td>3/30/2012</td>
    </tr>
</table>

Answer 1

After the document is loaded up, you could use something like this:

$('td:first-child').each(function(){
  var $td = $(this);
  $td.html('<a href="#">' + $td.text() + '</a>');
});

Fiddle here