How to get the text node of an element?

Question

<div class="title">
   I am text node
   <a class="edit">Edit</a>
</div>

I wish to get the "I am text node", do not wish to remove the "edit" tag, and need a cross browser solution.

Answer 1

var text = $(".title").contents().filter(function() {
  return this.nodeType == Node.TEXT_NODE;
}).text();

This gets the contents of the selected element, and applies a filter function to it. The filter function returns only text nodes (i.e. those nodes with nodeType == Node.TEXT_NODE).