How to select table cells without selecting nested table cells in jQuery

Question

I want to select only the first level of 'td' elements in a table and not the cells of any nested tables. eg:

<table id="Outer">
    <tr>

        <td> --this one
        </td> 

        <td> --this one
            <table>
                <tr>
                    <td></td> -- but not this one or any deeper nested cells
                </tr>
            </table>
        </td>

    </tr> 
</table>

(and yes in prod code i would include tbody, thead...)

Answer 1

Give the outermost table an id of "Outer":

$("table#Outer > td").text("selected");

Answer 2

I'd use the children selector, which only selects the immediate children matching the expression. To make it easy to select just the outer table, I'd give it a name. NOTE: this won't work with your sample as I've added in the selectors for thead, tbody, and tfoot as you indicate you will have in production. Adjust accordingly for your sample.

$('table#namedTable').children('tbody,thead,tfoot')
                     .children('tr')
                     .children('td')