jQuery Forum

Unless I misunderstand you, you should be able to select it directly
like so:
$('li.active');
If you need its ID for something:
$('li.active').attr('id');
- jason

Actually, what I was hoping for was to know which child it is.
IE: Say I have 5 li's under the ul. Say the 3rd one has the class of
active. Then later, the 2nd one is active, then maybe the 4th, etc
etc. Is there a way for me to figure that out?

Ah. Well, this is brute force, but works. Loop through the list
with .each() and check for the "active" class:
$('li').each(function(i){
    if($(this).is('.active')) alert(i);
});
There's probably a better way to do it...
- jason

Hi Leanan,
If you're trying to find out the "number" of the li with
class="active", you can use the .index() method (http://docs.jquery.com/Core/index/
):
var activeIndex = $('li').index($('li.active')[0]);
alert(activeIndex+1);
Note that I added 1 to activeIndex for the alert, because index()
starts at zero.
--Karl
_________________
Karl Swedberg
www.englishrules.com
www.learningjquery.com

...and there's the aforementioned better way!
- jason

Woot! I knew there was another way but my fogged mind couldn't think
of it. My mind's been pre-occupied with trying to figure out why $
('[selector]').children('[selector]').eq(index) keeps telling me that
that function doesn't exist.... (see my other thread about jqGrid
loadonce).
Thank you, Jason and Karl.