What is the difference direct descendent (>) vs. descendant in jQuery selectors?

Question

What\'s the difference between these two jQuery statements? They seem to do the same thing by getting all the children div tags.

$(\"#mainblock div\")
         


        

Answer 1

The first one will select any div that is a child of `#mainblock' at any level. The second will select any div that is an immediate child.

See this link for more info on the CSS > selector which behaves the same as in jQuery.