add public contains method

[joern]

Both Sizzle and jQuery UI core have their own internal contains-method. This could/should be added to the public API, maybe as a filter-variant:

$(".container").contains(event.target).doSomething();

To accept the most variant of arguments, a double-filter would be necessary:

// already exists in Sizzle
var contains = document.compareDocumentPosition ?  function(a, b){
	return a.compareDocumentPosition(b) & 16;
} : function(a, b){
	return a !== b && (a.contains ? a.contains(b) : true);
};
$.fn.contains = function(target) {
  var targets = $(target);
  return this.filter(function() {
    var container = this;
    return targets.filter(function() {
      return container.contains(this);
    }).length;
  });
}

Probably a rather naiive implementation, but it would ensure that both each of the selected elements and each of the arguments are considered.

The immediate usecase for me is to implement a subform-feature for the validation plugin. When an event like keyup or blur is triggered, I need to check if that target-element is contained inside the active subform-element, if so, validate it, if not, ignore the event. If it isn't inside any subform element, validate it, too. Something like this:

var validator = ...;
$("form").keyup(function(event) {
  if (validator.subforms.contains(event.target) && validator.subforms.filter(":active").contains(event.target) {
    $(event.target).valid();
  }
});

[kswedberg]

Hi Jörn,

I wonder about the naming of this method. It might cause some confusion, because we have a :contains selector that filters for text, not elements. Since it looks like your .contains() method is functionally similar to the :has selector, would it make more sense to call it .has()?

For example, if I'm understanding correctly, $(".container").contains(event.target) would return the same elements as $(".container:has(" + event.target + ")").

[paul.irish]

Since :not and :eq have matching method names, I'd agree with Karl on considering this method .has().

[brandon]

Another vote for .has()

[joern]

As a first step, and to remove the duplication in ui.core.js: Can we just expose the current method as $.contains?

[yehuda]

I have attached a patch against Sizzle and a patch against jQuery that adds .has support. It adds support for all standard parameters (as in filter and not)

[john]

Landed.  http://github.com/jquery/jquery/commit/4e27f17007c2329e31b449e61bb31197b90a37f1