Previous siblings selectors for jQuery

Question

If I have a simple HTML list

<ul>
  <li>Item 1</li>
  <li>Item 2</li>
  <li id="some-id">Item 3</li>
  <li>Item 4</li>
  <li>Item 5</li>
</ul>

it's easy to select every list item after #some-id:

$("#some-id ~ li")

but how do I select the items before #some-id?

Answer 1

Use .prevAll(), like this:

$("#some-id").prevAll()

For example:

$("#some-id").prevAll().css('color', 'red')​​​​​​​​​​​;​

Give it a try here, there's not a "previous siblings" selector like your next-siblings selector, but .prevAll() will get the elements you want, the same as you could substitute your current selector with $("#some-id").nextAll().

Answer 2

$("#some-id").prevAll()

See the documentation: http://api.jquery.com/prevAll/