jQuery - closest( selector ) Method

Description

The closest( selector ) method works by first looking at the current element to see if it matches the specified expression, if so it just returns the element itself. If it doesn't match then it will continue to traverse up the document, parent by parent, until an element is found that matches the specified expression. If no matching element is found then none will be returned.

Syntax

Here is the simple syntax to use this method −

selector.children( [selector] )

Parameters

Here is the description of all the parameters used by this method −

selector − This is the selector to be used to filter the elements.

Example

Following is a simple example a simple showing the usage of this method −

Live Demo

<html>
   <head>
      <title>The jQuery Example</title>
      <script type = "text/javascript" 
         src = "https://www.tutorialspoint.com/jquery/jquery-3.6.0.js">
      </script>
		
      <script>
         $(document).ready(function(){
            $(document).bind("click", function (e) {
               $(e.target).closest("li").toggleClass("highlight");
            });
         });
      </script>
		
      <style>
         .highlight { color:red; background: yellow;}
      </style>
   </head>
	
   <body>
      <div>
         <p>Click any item below to see the result:</p>
			
         <ul>
            <li class = "top">list item 1</li>
            <li class = "top">list item 2</li>
            <li class = "middle">list item 3</li>
            <li class = "middle">list item 4</li>
            <li class = "bottom">list item 5</li>
            <li class = "bottom">list item 6</li>
         </ul>
      </div>
   </body>
</html>

This will produce following result −

jquery-traversing.htm