[jQuery] identify tables with same ID ( duplicate ids)

[Samant]

hi,

I have 2 questions here for the group..

1.  Does Jquery have native functions or lib or plugins to support
conversion of  HTML Table data into XML string ( which can then be
sent via AJAX to server for getting a respone)  ?


2.  If my html page has tables with same ID , how can i obtain a
handle to all these tables. Eg.  there is html page with 3 tables  of
which 2 tables have same id.
Can i get a handle to these tables using  any method like
alert($('#Instructions').length);
This however give me length as 1 instead of 2 .

I tried using (IE only solution)
document.all('Instructions').length   which works fine , but this does
not work if there is only 1 id . eg.
alert(document.all('UserData').length);

Any help is appreciated !!

sample code
-----------------------------


<table id='Instructions' border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="1" >
<tbody>
        <tr>
                <td style="text-align: left; width:25%;  vertical-align: top">
                Table 1
                </td>
                <td  style="text-align: left; vertical-align: top">
                        <input name="enter" />

                </td>
        </tr>

</tbody>
</table>

<table id='Instructions' border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="1" >
<tbody>
        <tr>
                <td style="text-align: left; width:25%;  vertical-align: top">
                Table 2
                </td>
                <td  style="text-align: left; vertical-align: top">
                        <input name="enter" />

                </td>
        </tr>

</tbody>
</table>


<table id='UserData' border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="1" >
<tbody>
        <tr>
                <td style="text-align: left; width:25%;  vertical-align: top">
                Table 3
                </td>
                <td  style="text-align: left; vertical-align: top">
                        <input name="enter" />

                </td>
        </tr>

</tbody>
</table>



TIA for reading this