Check if Element Exists with jQuery

Published by , in General. 3 Comments
Tagged with , .
Check if Element Exists with jQuery

I often forget the simplest programming stuff. How to check whether an element exists or not with jQuery is such a frequently recurring forgetful thing. Putting the code in an article might help, so here we go:

if( $('#elementID').length ) { // Exists...do something }

As you see the length property of the jQuery object is the key. If it’s not 0 the element exists.

3 Responses

  1. Mattias says:
    July 18, 2012 at 9:22 pm

    Or, to have it as a helper function:

    jQuery.fn.exists = function() { 
   return this.length > 0; 
};

    And then use it like this:

    
if ( $('#element').exists() ) { 
   // Do something
}
  2. Ricky says:
    April 18, 2013 at 3:38 pm

    Mattias, martins fix is way better, no functions need to be parsed

  3. Gina says:
    May 30, 2017 at 7:04 pm

    Good points all around. Truly apidtcpaeer.

Possibly Related