I'm trying to get a location of an element in a jQuery set.

Here's what I tried so far.

I want to be able to do something like this:

$('ul').find('a').indexOf('.active');

And get the location of the .active in the set of a's.

Is there something like an indexOf() function for jQuery? The index() method doesn't work

I'm trying to get a location of an element in a jQuery set.

Here's what I tried so far.

I want to be able to do something like this:

$('ul').find('a').indexOf('.active');

And get the location of the .active in the set of a's.

Is there something like an indexOf() function for jQuery? The index() method doesn't work

• javascript
• jquery

• @gdoron the output is expected to be 2 (it's the 3rd a element) – tobyodavies Commented May 2, 2012 at 1:20
• @tobyodavies. there is an helpful overload. – gdoron Commented May 2, 2012 at 1:36
• @gdoron I know, having posted an answer using exactly that function over 30 minutes ago. – tobyodavies Commented May 2, 2012 at 1:40
• @tobyodavies. That's weird... I'm sure I looked and didn't see it. ??? – gdoron Commented May 2, 2012 at 1:47

4 Answers 4

if you pass a jQuery set ($searchFor) as an argument to the index method of another jQuery set ($searchIn) i.e.

$searchIn.index($searchFor)

it will return the index of $searchFor in the set $searchIn

In your example:

$('ul a').index($('ul a.active'));

​

You just need to give the index function a jQuery object:

var elements = $('ul a'); 
var index = elements.index(elements.filter('.active')); // 2

alert(index);

Live DEMO ​

There is no such function out of the box, it can be done easily like this:

var index = -1;
$('ul a').each(function(i){
    if ($(this).hasClass('active')){
        index = i;
        return false;
    }
});

alert(index);

Live DEMO

Your logic is sound, you're just grabbing the wrong element: http://jsfiddle.net/xz9dW/19/

var index = $('ul a.active').closest('li').index();

The a link has no index() value since it has no siblings; you have to grab the li

You can do this by just asking for it in the selector:

 $('ul a.active')

What do you mean by getting the location however? Do you mean position? or URL?

If you would like to know which one you click on lets say.. You would use $(this) inside your event function. Here is an example which returns the current position of the element you click on, if there are multiple with the .active class:

To get the position:

 $('ul a.active').click(function(){
     alert( $(this).position() );
 })

To get the URL location:

 $('ul a.active').click(function(){
     alert( $(this).attr('href') );
 })