How do you check if a selector matches something in jQuery? [duplicate]

Question

In Mootools, I'd just run if ($('target')) { ... }. Does if ($('#target')) { ... } in jQuery work the same way?

Answer 1

As the other commenters are suggesting the most efficient way to do it seems to be:

if ($(selector).length ) {     // Do something } 

If you absolutely must have an exists() function - which will be slower- you can do:

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

Then in your code you can use

if ($(selector).exists()) {     // Do something } 

As answered here

Answer 2

no, jquery always returns a jquery object regardless if a selector was matched or not. You need to use .length

if ( $('#someDiv').length ){  }