How to get top most div parent class

Question

I need to get the main culpritClass div class that holds everything after something is typed and enter is pressed and put it into a variable as a string.

I can't seem to get the class.

HTML:

<div class="culpritClass">
<div class="inner" style="display: block;">
<div class="inner_chat"></div>
<form>
<textarea class="chat_text"></textarea> 
</form>     
</div><a class="culpritClass" href="#">culprit</a>
</div>

I tried the following JS but I get undefined.

$('.chat_text').keypress(function(e) {
    if (e.keyCode == '13') {

        var ru = $(this).prev().parent().attr('class');

        alert(ru);
    }
});

The var ru is the line that matters.

Answer 1

var ru = $(this).parent().parent().parent().attr('class');

should do the trick. Even though this doesn't look like it is the neatest solution, it is the most straightforward one imo. Unless there's a function to pass an argument to a function which travels a number up, e.g. ancestor(3) which would travel three levels up in the DOM and return that element.

But if you are just trying to find the class itself, try closest.

var ru = $(this).closest('.culpritClass');