# .prevAll()

Categories: Traversing > Tree Traversal

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

Description: Get all preceding siblings of each element in the set of matched elements, optionally filtered by a selector.

- #### version added: 1.2.prevAll( [selector] )

  selectorA string containing a selector expression to match elements against.

Given a jQuery object that represents a set of DOM elements, the `.prevAll()` method searches through the predecessors of these elements in the DOM tree and construct a new jQuery object from the matching elements; the elements are returned in order beginning with the closest sibling.

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 simple list on it:

    <ul>
       <li>list item 1</li>
       <li>list item 2</li>
       <li class="third-item">list item 3</li>
       <li>list item 4</li>
       <li>list item 5</li>
    </ul>

If we begin at the third item, we can find the elements which come before it:

    $('li.third-item').prevAll().css('background-color', 'red');

The result of this call is a red background behind items 1 and 2. Since we do not supply a selector expression, these preceding elements are unequivocally included as part of the object. If we had supplied one, the elements would be tested for a match before they were included.

### Example:

#### Locate all the divs preceding the last div and give them a class.

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

      div { width:70px; height:70px; background:#abc;
            border:2px solid black; margin:10px; float:left; }
      div.before { border-color: red; }
      </style>
      <script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.7rc2.js"></script>
    </head>
    <body>
      <div></div>
      <div></div>
      <div></div>
      <div></div>
    <script>$("div:last").prevAll().addClass("before");</script>

    </body>
    </html>

#### Demo: