jquery code selector

Question

I have this code that someone else wrote and am wondering, what this jQuery code is selecting? Is this valid jQuery code?

var a = $("<h3/>").append($("<a/>", {
    href  : "/comic/title.html",
    class : "comic-link"
}).text("comic-name"));

I have never seen HTML tags being used like <h3/> or <a/>.

Answer 1

The above snippet does not select anything, it creates DOM elements and subsequently manipulates them.

See here for the jQuery documentation of this method.

Answer 2

1. $("<h3/>" creates a new h3 element
2. $("<a/>", { attributes}) creates an <a/> with those attributes
3. .text() appends the text
4. var a = the whole un-attached newly created DOM element (wrapped in a jQuery object)