Retrieve label content in Jquery

Question

Hi,

I am using JQuery for my application. In my code, I want to get only the text 'Firstname' in the label.

I tried it with

     $("#label"+div_id+"").html(); //but displays Firstname along with the span tag..

But I only need Firstname. How can i do so?

The following is my Html code

 <label id="label1">Firstname<span class="req"><em> * </em></span></label>

Answer 1

Copy the element, empty the EM and finally remove the span tag (test):

    var clone = $("#label"+div_id+"").clone();
    clone.find('em').empty().remove('span');
    alert(clone.text());  //alerts 'Firstname'

I will say that @ozan's solution is the better one (if slightly less readable) and does it in just one line:

    alert($("#label"+div_id+"").clone().children().remove().end().text());

Answer 2

The general solution to this problem -- namely, getting immediate text but not child text -- is elem.clone().children().remove().end().text(); (where elem here is $("#label"+div_id)). This has the same result as karim79's solution but with the benefit of not breaking if other tags are added to the label.