Actually if it doesn't have to be part of the DOM assuming you are passing in a context as the second parameter of $() which the original author is.
I don't use the xpath plugin so I'm not sure about that but the second attempt you said failed worked for me. I got 3 alert boxes with '1', '2', '3' just as I expected. Here is my test case. <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/ TR/html4/strict.dtd"> <html> <head> <title>Tester</title> <style type="text/css"> </style> <script type="text/javascript" src="jquery.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> function doIt() { $.get("jquery_xml_load.xml", function (xml) { $("building", xml).each(function () { alert($("city_id", this).text()); }); }); } $(document).ready(function() { $("button").click(doIt); }); </script> </head> <body> <button>Do It</button> </body> </html> The xml file is a copy and paste of what you put in your post. I think your problem is somewhere other than what you posted. Hope that helps. David
