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

This seems like a case of overusing jquery to me. The following will grab the text ignoring the other nodes:

document.getElementById("listItem").childNodes[0];

You'll need to trim that but it gets you what you want in one, easy line.

EDIT

The above will get the text node. To get the actual text, use this:

document.getElementById("listItem").childNodes[0].nodeValue;