jQuery add elements to empty selection?

Question

Why doesn\'t this work?

var spans = $();
var elem = document.getElementById(\'someId\');
spans.add(elem);

What is the proper way to start

Answer 1

The .add() method returns a new jQuery object, so you'd need to overwrite the old one:

spans = spans.add( elem );

...or since you're adding DOM elements, you can modify the existing jQuery object with .push().

spans.push( elem );

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EDIT: Changed .pushStack() to .push(), though I don't know if .push() is officially supported.

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You could use .pushStack() to add a collection though.

spans = spans.pushStack( [elem] );

or

spans = spans.pushStack( document.getElementsByTagName('div') );