## empty selector

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

- #### version added: 1.0jQuery( ":empty" )

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 https://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.

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    <!doctype html><html lang="en"><head>  <meta charset="utf-8">  <title>empty demo</title>  <style>  td {    text-align: center;  }  </style>  <script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.10.2.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: