Element or class LIKE selector for jQuery?

Question

For whatever reason I have these classes called .main_sub1, .main_sub2 etc. Never mind why I can't have .main .sub.

Is there a way with jQuery, sort of in the way it is possible to do with attributes, to get the classes containing main?

Answer 1

Using $("[class^=main]") will select all elements whose classname starts with 'main'. Take a look at jQuery docs about selectors, there are a lot of other variations you can use, for example:

• [class*=main] will select elements whose classname contains 'main'
• [class~=main] will select elements whose classname has the word 'main' (delimited with spaces)
• [class$=main] will select elements whose classname ends in 'main'

Answer 2

Yes, you can use an attribute selector to match certain values for the class attribute.

$('[class^=main]') // class begins with "main"
$('[class*=main]') // class contains "main" anywhere within it

Answer 3

In this instance, I would just treat the class attribute in the same way as you do a standard attribute.

$("[class*=main]")