How can I detect if a selector returns null?

Question

What is the best way to detect if a jQuery-selector returns an empty object. If you do:

alert($(\'#notAnElement\'));

you get [object Object

Answer 1

I like to do something like this:

$.fn.exists = function(){
    return this.length > 0 ? this : false;
}

So then you can do something like this:

var firstExistingElement = 
    $('#iDontExist').exists() ||      //<-returns false;
    $('#iExist').exists() ||          //<-gets assigned to the variable 
    $('#iExistAsWell').exists();      //<-never runs

firstExistingElement.doSomething();   //<-executes on #iExist

http://jsfiddle.net/vhbSG/