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jQuery parentsUntil() Method

❮ jQuery Traversing Methods

Example

Return all ancestor elements between <span> and <div>:

$(document).ready(function(){
  $("span").parentsUntil("div").css({"color": "red", "border": "2px solid red"});
});

Result:

body (great-great-grandparent)
div (great-grandparent)
    ul (grandparent)
  • li (direct parent) span
Try it Yourself »

Definition and Usage

The parentsUntil() method returns all ancestor elements between the selector and stop.

An ancestor is a parent, grandparent, great-grandparent, and so on.

The DOM tree: This method traverse upwards from the parent element along ancestors of DOM elements, all the way up to the document's root element, until it reaches a specific element.

Note: If both parameters are empty, this method will return all ancestor elements (same as the parents() method).

Related methods:

  • parent() -  returns the direct parent element of the selected element
  • parents() - returns all ancestor elements of the selected element
  • closest() - returns the first ancestor of the selected element


Syntax

$(selector).parentsUntil(stop,filter)

Parameter Description
stop Optional. A selector expression, element or jQuery object indicating where to stop the search for matching ancestor elements
filter Optional. Specifies a selector expression to narrow down the search for ancestors between selector and stop

Note: To return multiple ancestors, separate each expression with a comma.

Try it Yourself - Examples

Narrow down the search
How to use both parameters to filter the search for a specific element between <span> and <div>.

Return multiple ancestors
How to return multiple ancestors between <span> and <body>.

DOM
Return all ancestors between <span> and <div> using a DOM element.

Using a DOM element and a selector expression to filter the search
Using a DOM element to narrow down the ancestor search for <ul> elements between <span> and <div>.


❮ jQuery Traversing Methods