How to get the text node of an element?

Question

<div class="title">
   I am text node
   <a class="edit">Edit</a>
</div>

I want to get the "I am text node", don't want the "edit" tag to be removed, and need a cross-browser solution.

Answer 1

You can use the following method to get the nodeValue of the first child node

$('.title')[0].childNodes[0].nodeValue

http://jsfiddle.net/TU4FB/

Answer 2

var text = $(".title").contents().filter(function() {
  return this.nodeType == Node.TEXT_NODE;
}).text();

This takes the content of the selected element and applies the filter function to it. The filter function returns only text nodes (i.e. those with nodeType == Node.TEXT_NODE).