whats the better way to retrieve an element inside another?

Question

What the better way to select an element inside another:

var elem = $('#container').find('ul');
var elem = $('#container ul');
var elem = $('ul', '#container');

Any thoughts?

Doesn't really matter, they all work and the speed difference is so small you wouldn't even notice it on thousands of elements. — adeneo, Mar 07 '14 at 20:17
That said, the second one is usually what you want, unless there's a reason to use `find()`, and the third is just a shortcut for the first. — adeneo, Mar 07 '14 at 20:18
Because #1 and #3 are functionally equivalent, you can find your answer over at [jQuery: $('#id tag') vs. $('#id').find('tag') - which is preferable?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11502563/jquery-id-tag-vs-id-findtag-which-is-preferable) — Impirator, Mar 07 '14 at 20:23
there is one more way....use parent.children(childElement) method to select an element inside another — Arjit, Mar 07 '14 at 20:28

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 07 '14 at 20:38

1

Here's a test with Chrome 33, Firefox 14 and IE 11

Code use:

<div id="container"> 
    <ul>
        <li>1</li>
        <li>2</li>
        <li>3</li>
    </ul>
</div>

enter image description here

answered Mar 07 '14 at 20:38

Juan

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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 07 '14 at 20:20

0

The answer use to be The shorter the better. However, when benchmarking this, using jQuery here it doesn't make any significative difference. Anyways, I find this pretty and more concise:

var elem = $('#container ul');

answered Mar 07 '14 at 20:20

sidney

2,704
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whats the better way to retrieve an element inside another?

2 Answers2