I added support for including leading/trailing text fragments as TextNodes when using jQuery() to create DOM elements.

The fix is available in my Github fork. I've also issued a pull request.

http://github.com/furf/jquery/blob/master/src/core.js

Leading and trailing text fragments are currently dropped when using jQuery() to create DOM elements.

Currently:

$("this <em>doesn't work</em> as expected");

returns:

[em]

which renders as:

<em>doesn't work</em>

After my fix:

$("this <strong>works</strong> as expected"); 

returns:

[<TextNode textContent="this ">, strong, <TextNode textContent=" as expected">]

which renders as:

this <strong>works</strong> as expected

It seems strange that:

$('<em>this</em> and <em>that</em>');

returns:

[em, <TextNode textContent=" and ">, em]

and this:

$('some of <em>this</em> and <em>that</em>');

ALSO returns:

[em, <TextNode textContent=" and ">, em]

The patch was written in support of my $.template plugin (a Resig micro-templating variant). Loose text fragments were being omitted which required all templates to contain a wrapping DOM element whether it was needed or not.

http://github.com/furf/jquery-template

Since it looks like the discussion about templating in the jQuery core is heating up, this added feature may be worth inclusion. Otherwise, you may have to document the fact that templates require a DOM node (or nodes) at the extremities of the HTML.

Hope it helps.

furf