Question

I remember struggling with this before but I’ve googled and can’t find the reference. I want to:

var x = $('<div class="y">xxx</div>');
x.find('.y'); // returns 0 elements

and expect to find 1 element but find 0. was it about being attached to the document? I tried it with similar failure:

var x = $('<div class="y">xxx</div>');
$(document).append(x);
alert($(document).find('.y').length); // also returns 0 elements

what gives?

Answer 1

var x = $('<div class="y">xxx</div>');
x.find('.y');

This doesn’t work because what you’re telling it to do is find an element with class y within the newly created element when the element itself is what you’re looking for.

Here is something that works:

$('<div class="y">xxx</div>')
    .appendTo("html");

alert($('.y').length);