# .parents()

Categories: Traversing > Tree Traversal

## .parents( [selector] ) Returns: jQuery

Description: Get the ancestors of each element in the current set of matched elements, optionally filtered by a selector.

- #### version added: 1.0.parents( [selector] )

  selectorA string containing a selector expression to match elements against.

Given a jQuery object that represents a set of DOM elements, the `.parents()` method allows us to search through the ancestors of these elements in the DOM tree and construct a new jQuery object from the matching elements ordered from immediate parent on up; the elements are returned in order from the closest parent to the outer ones. The `.parents()` and `.parent()` methods are similar, except that the latter only travels a single level up the DOM tree.

The method optionally accepts a selector expression of the same type that we can pass to the `$()` function. If the selector is supplied, the elements will be filtered by testing whether they match it.

Consider a page with a basic nested list on it:

    <ul class="level-1">
      <li class="item-i">I</li>
      <li class="item-ii">II
        <ul class="level-2">
          <li class="item-a">A</li>
          <li class="item-b">B
            <ul class="level-3">
              <li class="item-1">1</li>
              <li class="item-2">2</li>
              <li class="item-3">3</li>
            </ul>
          </li>
          <li class="item-c">C</li>
        </ul>
      </li>
      <li class="item-iii">III</li>
    </ul>

If we begin at item A, we can find its ancestors:

    $('li.item-a').parents().css('background-color', 'red');

The result of this call is a red background for the level-2 list, item II, and the level-1 list (and on up the DOM tree all the way to the `<html>` element). Since we do not supply a selector expression, all of the ancestors are part of the returned jQuery object. If we had supplied one, only the matching items among these would be included.

### Examples:

#### Example: Find all parent elements of each b.

    <!DOCTYPE html>
    <html>
    <head>
      <style>
      b, span, p, html body {
        padding: .5em;
        border: 1px solid;
      }
      b { color:blue; }
      strong { color:red; }
      </style>
      <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.7rc2.js"></script>
    </head>
    <body>
      <div>
        <p>
          <span>
            <b>My parents are: </b>
          </span>

        </p>
      </div>
    <script>
    var parentEls = $("b").parents()
                .map(function () {
                      return this.tagName;
                    })
                .get().join(", ");
    $("b").append("<strong>" + parentEls + "</strong>");

    </script>

    </body>
    </html>

#### Demo:

#### Example: Click to find all unique div parent elements of each span.

    <!DOCTYPE html>
    <html>
    <head>
      <style>

      p, div, span {margin:2px; padding:1px; }
      div { border:2px white solid; }
      span { cursor:pointer; font-size:12px; }
      .selected { color:blue; }
      b { color:red; display:block; font-size:14px; }
      </style>
      <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.7rc2.js"></script>
    </head>
    <body>
      <p>
        <div>
          <div><span>Hello</span></div>
          <span>Hello Again</span>

        </div>
        <div>
          <span>And Hello Again</span>
        </div>
      </p>

      <b>Click Hellos to toggle their parents.</b>
    <script>
    function showParents() {
      $("div").css("border-color", "white");
      var len = $("span.selected")
                       .parents("div")
                       .css("border", "2px red solid")
                       .length;
      $("b").text("Unique div parents: " + len);
    }
    $("span").click(function () {
      $(this).toggleClass("selected");
      showParents();
    });</script>

    </body>
    </html>

#### Demo: