jQuery Forum

I came upon what I think is a bug when trying to refactor some code to use a common parent element. When splitting the selector up into a common part and using .find for the specific part it suddenly failed with a Syntax error since the attribute selector is missing the closing bracket. Using just the specific part as the selector in the main jQuery function works though, as does using a compound selector. Is there a difference in how selectors are parsed in the $(..) function and in the find(..) function, and should there be?

Of course I should just update the selector to be properly formed, but I am curious as to why the two functions differ.

2. <div class='a'>
3.     <div>
4.       <a href='#1'></a>
5.     </div>
6.   </div>
7.   <div class='a'>
8.     <div>
9.       <a href='#2'></a>
10.     </div>
11.   </div>
12.   <div class='a'>
13.     <div>
14.       <a href='#3'></a>
15.     </div>
16.   </div>

2. $('.a [href="#1"').text('Found!'); // This works
3. $('[href="#2"').text('Found!'); // This works too
4. $('.a').find('[href="#3"').text('Found!'); // This fails