jQuery - selectors on a html string

Question

I am going to get a element from a html-string with jQuery, but I always get an undefined in my console. My String is:

asd         


        

Answer 1

You can't use jQuery selectors on a collection of nodes like this. You can wrap in a single node to work around this, so just add e.g. a wrapping node.

var htmlBits = ''
  + 'asdfghjkl'
  + '';

And then it will work:

console.log($('.test', htmlBits).text()); // outputs 'asd'

JSFiddle (remember to view the console to see the log).