Append HTML to first empty div in parent

Question

I have been searching on here for awhile but cannot find anything in regards to this. What I have is a set of divs within a parent div. When the user clicks a compare checkbox I want to append the HTML that contains the data-thumbnail to the first empty div. So if the user clicks three things to compare, the first would go into div1, the second into div2 and so on. I am looking to do this in JQuery.

Below is what I have:

<div id="my_cars_compare" class="my_cars_expanded" style="height: 45px;">   
<span class="my_cars_heading">
    X cars added to My Cars <span class="expand_it">Expand</span>
</span>
    <div id="my_cars_1" class="my_cars_empty first"></div>
    <div id="my_cars_2" class="my_cars_empty"></div>
    <div id="my_cars_3" class="my_cars_empty"></div>
    <div id="my_cars_4" class="my_cars_empty"></div>
    <div id="my_cars_5" class="my_cars_empty"></div>
    <div id="my_cars_6" class="my_cars_empty"></div>
    <input type="submit" value="Compare" class="btn_compare" />
    <br clear="all" />
</div>

JQuery:

$(document).ready(function()
{
$('.compare_click').click(function() {
var dataThumbnail = $(this).parent('td').find('img.clicked').attr('data-thumbnail');

var my_cars_count = $('.my_cars_expanded').children('div').length;

for ( my_cars_count >= 6 ) {


    $('.my_cars_expanded').find('div:empty').append('<div class="my_cars_details" style="position: relative;"><div class="my_cars_delete"><img src="btn_mycars_close_overlay.png" /></div><div class="my_cars_photo"><img src="'+dataThumbnail+'" width="67px" /></div></div>');   
};

});
});

Answer 1

You can use the :first selector, div:empty selects all the empty div tags:

$('.my_cars_expanded').find('div:empty:first').append('...');   

The syntax of your for loop is like the if statement, I think you want to use an if statement.

var my_cars_count = $('.my_cars_expanded').find('div:empty').length;
if ( my_cars_count > 0 ) {
     $('.my_cars_expanded').find('div:empty:first').append('...');   
};