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 came up with a specific solution that should be much more efficient than the cloning and modifying of the clone. This solution only works with the following two reservations, but should be more efficient than the currently accepted solution:

1. You are getting only the text
2. The text you want to extract is before the child elements

With that said, here is the code:

// 'element' is a jQuery element
function getText(element) {
  var text = element.text();
  var childLength = element.children().text().length;
  return text.slice(0, text.length - childLength);
}