jQuery :first takes 5 times as long as el.eq(0)

[tsukasa1989@…]

I'm doing some research, and I wonder why is the following:

The following source takes 600ms

var d1 = new Date;
var t = $("table");
for(i=0;i<10000;i++)
{
    var f = t.find("td").eq(0);
}
console.log((new Date) - d1);

But then I change this:

var f = t.find("td:first");
or
var f = t.find("td:eq(0)");

Which takes 4000ms (it's x5!)

Though :first-child only takes 600ms and is the fastest.

Now I wonder, can't :first or :eq(0) be made faster, cu's this is insane. If I just select all elements and do a eq(0) after, it is way faster.

[sindresorhus]

Wrong place. Try asking in the forums, or on StackOverflow.

[Timmy Willison]

The answer is that :first is a custom jQuery selector that does not use querySelectorAll. It is there for convenience, but we recommend using the faster native selectors.