How do I select text nodes with jQuery?

Question

I would like to get all descendant text nodes of an element, as a jQuery collection. What is the best way to do that?

Answer 1

For some reason contents() didn't work for me, so if it didn't work for you, here's a solution I made, I created jQuery.fn.descendants with the option to include text nodes or not

Usage

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Get all descendants including text nodes and element nodes

jQuery('body').descendants('all');

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Get all descendants returning only text nodes

jQuery('body').descendants(true);

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Get all descendants returning only element nodes

jQuery('body').descendants();

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Coffeescript Original:

jQuery.fn.descendants = ( textNodes ) ->

    # if textNodes is 'all' then textNodes and elementNodes are allowed
    # if textNodes if true then only textNodes will be returned
    # if textNodes is not provided as an argument then only element nodes
    # will be returned

    allowedTypes = if textNodes is 'all' then [1,3] else if textNodes then [3] else [1]

    # nodes we find
    nodes = []


    dig = (node) ->

        # loop through children
        for child in node.childNodes

            # push child to collection if has allowed type
            nodes.push(child) if child.nodeType in allowedTypes

            # dig through child if has children
            dig child if child.childNodes.length


    # loop and dig through nodes in the current
    # jQuery object
    dig node for node in this


    # wrap with jQuery
    return jQuery(nodes)

Drop In Javascript Version

var __indexOf=[].indexOf||function(e){for(var t=0,n=this.length;t=0){i.push(r)}if(r.childNodes.length){f.push(n(r))}else{f.push(void 0)}}return f};for(s=0,o=this.length;s

Unminified Javascript version: http://pastebin.com/cX3jMfuD

This is cross browser, a small Array.indexOf polyfill is included in the code.