Using .text() to retrieve only text not nested in child tags

Question

If I have html like this:

    This is some text
    First span text
    

        

Answer 1

Similar to the accepted answer, but without cloning:

$("#foo").contents().not($("#foo").children()).text();

And here is a jQuery plugin for this purpose:

$.fn.immediateText = function() {
    return this.contents().not(this.children()).text();
};

Here is how to use this plugin:

$("#foo").immediateText(); // get the text without children