Question

so, i have something like this.

 var $list = $("div#item");

I was looking at :contains in the selector, but i wasnt sure if that applied to markup or if i should do something like:

 if($list.find("<b>"))return 1;
 else return 0;

Reasoning: Adding functionality to a program which uses inline tags, and want to maintain structure.

Goal: if(item contains an inline b, u, i tags) return 1; else return 0;

Answer 1

You can simplify it down to a single selector .find("b,i,u") and return the boolean comparison length > 0. If any of the tags <b><i><u> are found inside #item, the overall length will be > 0:

return $("#item").find("b,i,u").length > 0;

Proof of concept

Edit: If you really want a number zero or one back instead of the boolean, use a ternary:

return $("#item").find("b,i,u").length > 0 ? 1 : 0;