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

I propose to use the createTreeWalker to find all texts elements not attached to html elements (this function can be used to extend jQuery):

function textNodesOnlyUnder(el) {
  var resultSet = [];
  var n = null;
  var treeWalker  = document.createTreeWalker(el, NodeFilter.SHOW_TEXT, function (node) {
    if (node.parentNode.id == el.id && node.textContent.trim().length != 0) {
      return NodeFilter.FILTER_ACCEPT;
    }
    return NodeFilter.FILTER_SKIP;
  }, false);
  while (n = treeWalker.nextNode()) {
    resultSet.push(n);
  }
  return resultSet;
}



window.onload = function() {
  var ele = document.getElementById('listItem');
  var textNodesOnly = textNodesOnlyUnder(ele);
  var resultingText = textNodesOnly.map(function(val, index, arr) {
    return 'Text element N. ' + index + ' --> ' + val.textContent.trim();
  }).join('\n');
  document.getElementById('txtArea').value = resultingText;
}

    This is some text
    First span text
    Second span text