Question

Is it possible to re-write the following selector using an “OR” operator or similar?

$("a[href$='avi'], a[href$='mov'], a[href$='mp4'], a[href$='m4v']")

Ideally something like:

$("a[href$='avi|mov|mp4|m4v']") // incorrect

to get a few more miles out of my keyboard. I have a test fiddle.

Answer 1

You can do this by extending jQuery with James Padolseys Regex Selector for jQuery. Pretty useful when you want to put regex into your selectors.

Run this code in Test fiddle

jQuery.expr[':'].regex = function(elem, index, match) {
    var matchParams = match[3].split(','),
        validLabels = /^(data|css):/,
        attr = {
            method: matchParams[0].match(validLabels) ?
                        matchParams[0].split(':')[0] : 'attr',
            property: matchParams.shift().replace(validLabels,'')
        },
        regexFlags = 'ig',
        regex = new RegExp(matchParams.join('').replace(/^\s+|\s+$/g,''), regexFlags);
    return regex.test(jQuery(elem)[attr.method](attr.property));
}

$("a[href$='avi'], a[href$='mov'], a[href$='mp4'], a[href$='m4v']")
    .addClass("select");


$('a:regex(href,avi|mov|mp4|m4v)').addClass("betterSelect");