Find parent element of string in Javascript

Question

I\'m attempting to find a specific string in a document which potentially can have the text split by other tags (i.e. "< p > This is an < span > example < /s

Answer 1

You need recursion for this:

function recursivelySearchString(str,from){
    if(from.textContent.indexOf(str)==-1)
        return null // doesn't contain the string, stop

    var children = Array.from(from.children)
    if(children.length>0){
        // current element has children, look deeper
        for(var i=0;i

Calling recursivelySearchString('foobar',document.body) will return the closest element containing the phrase. Note it will return the element wrapped in a jQuery selector. If nothing is found it returns null.

Example:

function recursivelySearchString(str,from){
    if(from.textContent.indexOf(str)==-1)
        return null // doesn't contain the string, stop

    var children = Array.from(from.children)
    if(children.length>0){
        // current element has children, look deeper
        for(var i=0;i

  

    Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua.
  
  

    At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum.
    Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.