.parent()

Categories: Traversing > Tree Traversal

.parent( [selector ] )Returns: jQuery

Description: Get the parent of each element in the current set of matched elements, optionally filtered by a selector.

Given a jQuery object that represents a set of DOM elements, the parent() method traverses to the immediate parent of each of these elements in the DOM tree and constructs a new jQuery object from the matching elements.

This method is similar to .parents(), except .parent() only travels a single level up the DOM tree. Also, $( "html" ).parent() method returns a set containing document whereas $( "html" ).parents() returns an empty set.

The method optionally accepts a selector expression of the same type that we can pass to the $() function. If the selector is supplied, the elements will be filtered by testing whether they match it.

Consider a page with a basic nested list on it:

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<ul class="level-1">
  <li class="item-i">I</li>
  <li class="item-ii">II
    <ul class="level-2">
      <li class="item-a">A</li>
      <li class="item-b">B
        <ul class="level-3">
          <li class="item-1">1</li>
          <li class="item-2">2</li>
          <li class="item-3">3</li>
        </ul>
      </li>
      <li class="item-c">C</li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  <li class="item-iii">III</li>
</ul>

If we begin at item A, we can find its parents:

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$( "li.item-a" ).parent().css( "background-color", "red" );

The result of this call is a red background for the level-2 list. Since we do not supply a selector expression, the parent element is unequivocally included as part of the object. If we had supplied one, the element would be tested for a match before it was included.

Examples:

Shows the parent of each element as (parent > child). Check the View Source to see the raw html.

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<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <title>parent demo</title>
  <style>
  div, p {
    margin: 10px;
  }
  </style>
  <script src="jquery-1.10.2.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
 
<div>div,
  <span>span, </span>
  <b>b </b>
</div>
 
<p>p,
  <span>span,
    <em>em </em>
  </span>
</p>
 
<div>div,
  <strong>strong,
    <span>span, </span>
    <em>em,
      <b>b, </b>
    </em>
  </strong>
  <b>b </b>
</div>
 
<script>
$( "*", document.body ).each(function() {
  var parentTag = $( this ).parent().get( 0 ).tagName;
  $( this ).prepend( document.createTextNode( parentTag + " > " ) );
});
</script>
 
</body>
</html>

Demo:

Find the parent element of each paragraph with a class "selected".

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<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <title>parent demo</title>
  <script src="jquery-1.10.2.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
 
<div><p>Hello</p></div>
<div class="selected"><p>Hello Again</p></div>
 
<script>
$( "p" ).parent( ".selected" ).css( "background", "yellow" );
</script>
 
</body>
</html>

Demo: