jQuery: How to count table columns?

Answer 1

With jQuery and reduce it could look like this:

$.fn.tableCellCount = function() {
    return $(this).find('tr:first td, tr:first th').get().reduce(function(a,b) {
        return a + ($(b).attr('colspan') ? parseInt($(b).attr('colspan')) : 1);
    },0)
}

$('table').tableCellCount();

Or even simpler:

$.fn.tableCellCount = function() {
    return $(this).find('tr:first td, tr:first th').get().reduce(function(a,b) {
        return a + (b.colSpan ? parseInt(b.colSpan) : 1);
    },0)
}

$('table').tableCellCount();