In jQuery or JavaScript, select child element adjoining the parent

Question

I'm trying to select the child elements which are joined with the parent. For example, in the following HTML, I only want to select the child (strong) of the second and fourth paragraphs, since in those two cases the child & parent are adjoining (i.e. no text or markup between the child & parent elements):

<p>This is line <strong>number one</strong></p>
<p><strong>This is line number two</strong></p>
<p>This <strong>is line number three</strong></p>
<p><strong>This is line</strong> number four</p>

How can I do this with just the selectors if possible?!

Answer 1

You can use the filter method:

$('p > strong').filter(function(){
   return !this.previousSibling;
});

FIDDLE