Get all elements without child node in jQuery

Question

I need to select elements without child node (including text since in

text is a child node).

I used empty, but it also consider

Answer 1

How about

$("span:not(:has(*))")

Selects all spans that have no children.

Explanation

The :has() selector "selects elements which contain at least one element that matches the specified selector." The wildcard * means all elements.

The expression $('div:has(p)') matches a

if a

exists anywhere among its descendants, not just as a direct child.

The :not() selector "selects all elements that do not match the given selector."

In this case, :has() selects everything and then we use :not() to find the elements that don't match "everything"... in other words, nothing.

Demo