Question

is it possible to find all nodes that don’t have a specified child node?

for example:

(xml)

<item>
    <name>item 1</name>
    <admin>true</admin>
</item>

<item>
    <name>item 2</name>
    <admin>true</admin>
</item>

<item>
    <name>item 3</name>
    <parent>item 1</parent>
    <url></url>
    <admin>false</admin>
</item>

I want to pick out all nodes that don’t have a child node “parent”. I can do this if I set an attribute named parent and call:

(jquery)

$(xml).find("item:not([parent])").each

but I was wondering if this is possible by using a child node instead.

Answer 1

You may get other good suggestions — possibly based only on selectors — but I believe this will work.

$('item').filter(function() {
    return $(this).find('parent').length === 0;
}).doSomethingWithTheSetOfItemsWithoutParents();

UPDATE

Based on selector documentation, I think this one will do what you want:

$('item:not(:has(parent))')