Pete... There is a built in parent method which does pretty much what you're doing.
http://remysharp.com/jquery-api/ Look under parents(). -----Original Message----- From: jquery-en@googlegroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of ProggerPete Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 10:41 AM To: jQuery (English) Subject: [jQuery] My first jQuery plugin Hi folks, I'm very new to jQuery and am playing around with what is possible. I found myself wanting a findParent function and couldn't spot one ready made. I'd love it if people could give me feedback on my implementation. I'm sure there's plenty I could do better. If this function also exists I'd like to know where it is too. =) /** * return the first parent that matches the selector. Optionally include the src element in the search */ $.fn.findParent = function() { var _this, _selector, _includeSelf, _result; function find(index, elem) { if (!_includeSelf) elem = elem.parentNode; while (elem) { if ($(elem).is(_selector)) return _result.push(elem); elem = elem.parentNode; } } function _findParent(selector, includeSelf) { var thisp = _this = this; _selector = selector; _includeSelf = includeSelf; _result = []; this.each(find); var retObj = $(_result); retObj.end = function () { return thisp }; return retObj; } return _findParent; }(); Cheers, Pete