[jquery] Selecting only first-level elements in jquery

How can I select the link elements of only the parent <ul> from a list like this?

<ul>
<li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Link</a>
  <ul>
    <li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
  </ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Link</a></li>

So in css ul li a, but not ul li ul li a

Thanks

You can also use $("ul li:first-child") to only get the direct children of the UL.

I agree though, you need an ID or something else to identify the main UL otherwise it will just select them all. If you had a div with an ID around the UL the easiest thing to do would be$("#someDiv > ul > li")

.add_to_cart >>> .form-item:eq(1)

the second .form-item at tree level child from the .add_to_cart

Once you have the initial ul, you can use the children() method, which will only consider the immediate children of the element. As @activa points out, one way to easily select the root element is to give it a class or an id. The following assumes you have a root ul with id root.

$('ul#root').children('li');

Simply you can use this..

$("ul li a").click(function() {
  $(this).parent().find(">ul")...Something;
}

See example : https://codepen.io/gmkhussain/pen/XzjgRE

1

 $("ul.rootlist > target-element")
2   $("ul.rootlist").find(target-element).eq(0) (only one instance)
3   $("ul.rootlist").children(target-element)

there are probably many other ways

You might want to try this if results still flows down to children, in many cases JQuery will still apply to children.

$("ul.rootlist > li > a")

Using this method: E > F Matches any F element that is a child of an element E.

Tells JQuery to look only for explicit children. http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/selector.html

Try this:

$("#myId > UL > LI")

I had some trouble with nested classes from any depth so I figured this out. It will select only the first level it encounters of a containing Jquery Object:

var $elementsAll = $("#container").find(".fooClass");4_x000D_
_x000D_
var $levelOneElements = $elementsAll.not($elementsAll.children().find($elementsAll));_x000D_
_x000D_
$levelOneElements.css({"color":"red"})

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.9.1/jquery.min.js"></script>_x000D_
<div class="fooClass" style="color:black">_x000D_
Container_x000D_
  <div id="container">_x000D_
    <div class="fooClass" style="color:black">_x000D_
      Level One_x000D_
      <div>_x000D_
        <div class="fooClass" style="color:black">_x000D_
             Level Two_x000D_
        </div>_x000D_
      </div>_x000D_
    </div>_x000D_
    <div class="fooClass" style="color:black">_x000D_
      Level One_x000D_
      <div>_x000D_
        <div class="fooClass" style="color:black">_x000D_
             Level Two_x000D_
        </div>_x000D_
      </div>_x000D_
    </div>_x000D_
  </div>_x000D_
</div>

As stated in other answers, the simplest method is to uniquely identify the root element (by ID or class name) and use the direct descendent selector.

$('ul.topMenu > li > a')

However, I came across this question in search of a solution which would work on unnamed elements at varying depths of the DOM.

This can be achieved by checking each element, and ensuring it does not have a parent in the list of matched elements. Here is my solution, wrapped in a jQuery selector 'topmost'.

jQuery.extend(jQuery.expr[':'], {
  topmost: function (e, index, match, array) {
    for (var i = 0; i < array.length; i++) {
      if (array[i] !== false && $(e).parents().index(array[i]) >= 0) {
        return false;
      }
    }
    return true;
  }
});

Utilizing this, the solution to the original post is:

$('ul:topmost > li > a')

// Or, more simply:
$('li:topmost > a')

Complete jsFiddle available here.