what does this mean: “jQuery('> li', this)”

Question

I\'m trying to figure out how this jQuery plugin works: http://codeasily.com/jquery/multi-column-list-with-jquery

In the plugin there is this line at the beginning:<

Answer 1

Don't use it. The docs advise that you shouldn't use at as it will be soon deprecated.

From http://api.jquery.com/child-selector/

Note: The $("> elem", context) selector will be deprecated in a future release. Its usage is thus discouraged in lieu of using alternative selectors.

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But to answer, it effectively uses the element(s) from which the selector is called as the left hand operand of the child-selector.