Question

Say I have:

<div class="outer">

<div class="foo bar"></div>

</div>

How can I check to see if $('.outer') has a div with a class named “bar” within it?

Answer 1

Use the :has selector.

$('.outer:has(.bar)')

jsFiddle.

This will select all elements with a class of bar with a outer ancestor.

If you have a reference to a collection selected with $('.outer'), you can drop ones which don’t have the child element with filter() and :has.

jsFiddle.

If you have a reference to a bar and want to know if it has a .outer ancestor, you could do…

!!$('.bar:first').closest('.outer').length

jsFiddle.