Question

Possible Duplicate:
Why does $(‘#id’) return true if id doesn’t exist?

I have a very simple js function:

function refresh(ltr) {
    if (board.find('p:contains("' + ltr + '")')) {
        board.find('p:contains("' + ltr + '")').show();
    } else {
        alert('Hello.');  
    }
}

Obviously I pass a string to ltr, it works fine if it contains the string but if not it do not fire the alert…

Do you know why?

Answer 1

Because .find returns a jQuery object which always evaluates to true

Try a boolean expression:

if( board.find('p:contains("' + ltr + '")').length > 0 )