Why use jQuery(selector).get(0) instead of jQuery(selector)[0] to get DOM element?

Question

Using jQuery is there any benefit to using $(selector).get(0) over $(selector)[0] if I just want to get the first item in the jQuery array as a DOM ele

Answer 1

.get allows you to use negative indices. For example:

1
2
3

$("span").get(-1); refers to the third span.

But if you don't need that feature and only want to select one element .get(0) and [0] are the same. Notice the this[num]:

// jQuery code
get: function (num) {
    return num == null ?

    // Return a 'clean' array
    this.toArray() :

    // Return just the object
    (num < 0 ? this[this.length + num] : this[num]);
},