How to find if div with specific id exists in jQuery?

Question

I’ve got a function that appends a

to an element on click. The function gets the text of the clicked element and assigns it to a variable called

Answer 1

Nick's answer nails it. You could also use the return value of getElementById directly as your condition, rather than comparing it to null (either way works, but I personally find this style a little more readable):

if (document.getElementById(name)) {
  alert('this record already exists');
} else {
  // do stuff
}