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While writing code in jQuery, I often use .text() method to get the content of any element from DOM. This function is straight forward, it strips off all the html element from a selected element and returns the remaining text. So for below element the .text() method will return “A quick brown fox”.

<div id="foo">
 A quick brown fox
</div>
<script>
 $("#foo").text(); //return "A quick brown fox"
</script>
Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

But by the definition the .text() returns all the text inside an element. What if you have an element which contains child elements and you want text of only the selected element ignoring all the child elements? For example: Here we have a DIV which has text “A quick brown fox” and also contain a child DIV which has text “jumps over a lazy dog!”

<div id="foo">
 A quick brown fox
 <div id="bar">
  jumps over a lazy dog!
 </div>
</div>

<script>
 $("#foo").text(); //return "A quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog!"
</script>
Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

What if you just want “A quick brown fox” and wants to ignore all the child element? Well, here is a simple solution using jQuery.

<script>
 $("#foo")
  .clone() //clone the element
  .children() //select all the children
  .remove() //remove all the children
  .end() //again go back to selected element
  .text(); //get the text of element
</script>
Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

We clone the element that you want text of, then remove all the child elements from this cloned element and then returns the text of element. I have written a small jQuery plugin “justtext” which you can use to get the text of element and ignore all child elements. Here is the code of justtext plugin.

jQuery.fn.justtext = function() {
  
 return $(this) .clone()
   .children()
   .remove()
   .end()
   .text();

};
Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

So the usage is just by calling justtext() method on any element.

<!-- include justtext jquery plugin -->
<script src="https://www.viralpatel.net/demo/jquery/get-text-without-child-element/jquery.justtext.1.0.js"></script>

<div id="foo">
 A quick brown fox
 <div id="bar">
  jumps over a lazy dog!
 </div>
</div>

<script>
 $("#foo").justtext(); //return "A quick brown fox" 
</script>
Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

Online Demo

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