Jquery/css not selector does not work

Question

I'm trying to exclude one block from my jquery selection.

I have the following html structure:

<div id="center">
    ...
    <div id="menu>
        <!-- menu -->
    </div>
    ...
</div>

Now I want to select all elements from #center except for the menu. That's why my jquery look like this:

$("#center").not("#menu")....

But this seems to select exactly the same as

$("#center")....

I also tried

$("#center:not(#menu)")....

And this also gave me the same result. So how can I select all elements from a div without a certain div?

Well, an element with the ID `center` can't possibly also have the ID `menu`. — cookie monster, Apr 07 '14 at 14:09
I'd be curious to know why you need to select all descendants except one. Seems like you may be taking a wrong approach. — cookie monster, Apr 07 '14 at 14:10
@Danny Saying they give exactly the same result as selecting the single DIV using `$('#center')` seems pretty explicit to me. — Anthony Grist, Apr 07 '14 at 14:17

Milind Anantwar · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-07T14:22:12.360

4

I guess you want to select other divs that are siblings of #menu and are child of #center:

$("#center> *").not("#menu");

For all contents:

$("#center *").not("#menu");

edited Apr 07 '14 at 14:22

answered Apr 07 '14 at 14:09

Milind Anantwar

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 07 '14 at 14:12

1

seems like you should be doing something like

$("#center").children().not("#menu");

answered Apr 07 '14 at 14:12

Jason Fingar

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 07 '14 at 14:14

0

Selects all with id='center' which doesn't have id='menu'

$("#center").not("#menu")

logically doesn't make much sense.

You should use

$("#center *").not("#menu");

instead which selects all elements inside center which don't have id=menu.

answered Apr 07 '14 at 14:14

speedingdeer

This would select every descendant element, and is therefore not terribly efficient. – isherwood Apr 07 '14 at 14:14
isn't it a case to select all descendant elements? – speedingdeer Apr 07 '14 at 14:16
Just the children of `#center`, as I understand it. – isherwood Apr 07 '14 at 14:59
I understood that @genz is asking for all but it can be my mistake. Anyway I think that the question was already well answered :) – speedingdeer Apr 08 '14 at 08:35

3 Answers3