:empty Selector
empty selector
version added: 1.0jQuery(':empty')
Description: Select all elements that have no children (including text nodes).
This is the inverse of :parent.
One important thing to note with :empty (and :parent) is that child elements include text nodes.
The W3C recommends that the <p> element have at least one child node, even if that child is merely text (see http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/text.html#edef-P). Some other elements, on the other hand, are empty (i.e. have no children) by definition: <input>, <img>, <br>, and <hr>, for example.
Example:
Finds all elements that are empty - they don't have child elements or text.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
td { text-align:center; }
</style>
<script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.7rc2.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<table border="1">
<tr><td>TD #0</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td>TD #2</td><td></td></tr>
<tr><td></td><td>TD#5</td></tr>
</table>
<script>$("td:empty").text("Was empty!").css('background', 'rgb(255,220,200)');</script>
</body>
</html>