# :empty Selector

Categories: Selectors > Content Filter

## empty selector

#### version added: 1.0jQuery(':empty')

Description: Select all elements that have no children (including text nodes).

This is the inverse of `:parent`.

One important thing to note with :empty (and :parent) is that child elements include text nodes.

The W3C recommends that the `<p>` element have at least one child node, even if that child is merely text (see http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/text.html#edef-P). Some other elements, on the other hand, are empty (i.e. have no children) by definition: <input>, <img>, <br>, and <hr>, for example.

### Example:

#### Finds all elements that are empty - they don't have child elements or text.

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

      td { text-align:center; }
      </style>
      <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.7rc2.js"></script>
    </head>
    <body>
      <table border="1">
        <tr><td>TD #0</td><td></td></tr>
        <tr><td>TD #2</td><td></td></tr>

        <tr><td></td><td>TD#5</td></tr>
      </table>
    <script>$("td:empty").text("Was empty!").css('background', 'rgb(255,220,200)');</script>

    </body>
    </html>

#### Demo: