Removing comments and text nodes from jQuery collection

Question

$html = $("<!-- comment --> <p>text</p>");

creates a jQuery collection like so

$( [the comment], [text node], p )

How can I access the paragraph only? .find("p") returns an empty collection

And, for extra points,

$html = $("<p>text</p>");

creates a jQuery collection like so

$( p )

Is there a fail safe way to get at the p, and only the p, that works whether the comment is there or not?

Answer 1

The simplest way is with filter and the universal selector *, which matches all elements.

$html = $("<!-- comment --> <p>text</p>").filter('*');

Answer 2

var p = $html.filter(function() { return this.nodeType === 1; });

jsFiddle.