1. <input type="text" name="statuteCode" value="" id="txt_search_statuteCode" maxlength="40" size="14"  />
   <input type='button' id='btnSearchCode' value='' class='button-search' />
   
   
   var ele = $(this).closest("input[type='text']").prop('id'); // returns undefined, I would expect it to return txt_search_statuteCode while inside the event handler for btnSearchCode

Does anyone know what the problem is here? It does find an object, but I don't know what object

I fixed it like this:

$(this).siblings('input:first').prop('id'); // this works!

The problem seems to be it doesn't like: [type='text']