Making jQuery's .prev().prev().prev().find("selector") calls easier

How can I avoid the .prev().pre开发者_开发百科v().prev() calls? Is there a shortcut for this?

You can use .prevAll, combined with eq or :eq, since prevAll returns a set of element in the reverse order starting with the element that's closest to the current element being [0], the equivalent to .prev().prev().prev() would be .prevAll().eq(2) or .prevAll(':eq(2)').

See this simple demo: http://www.jsfiddle.net/QZYHN/

You can do prevAll() with a selector.

$('div').prevAll('a:last')

Try closest which searches for the nearest ancestor that matches the selector. eg.

$(this).closest('table').find('selector')

Edit: Added find() at the end

take a look at nth-child in jquery, might be of help...