Parse By Style patch

[yehuda]

This patch allows you use the regular jQuery function to parse by styles.

For example, you could do:

  $("div[&display=inline]")  
  $("div[&height>=12]")
  $("table[&border-collapse=collapse]")

The patch also slightly modifies the jQuery parsing system to make it more amenable to adding parsers:

Index: jquery.js
===================================================================
--- jquery.js	(revision 475)
+++ jquery.js	(working copy)
@@ -1637,8 +1637,24 @@
 			"^=": "z && !z.indexOf(m[4])",
 			"$=": "z && z.substr(z.length - m[4].length,m[4].length)==m[4]",
 			"*=": "z && z.indexOf(m[4])>=0",
-			"": "z"
+			"": "z",
+			_resort: true,
+			_prefix: "z=jQuery.curCSS(a,m[3]);"
 		},
+		"&": {
+  		"=": "z==m[4]",
+  		"!=": "z!=m[4]",
+  		"^=": "z && !z.indexOf(m[4])",
+  		"$=": "z && z.substr(z.length - m[4].length,m[4].length)==m[4]",
+  		"*=": "z && z.indexOf(m[4])>=0",
+      ">": "parseInt(z)>parseInt(m[4])",
+      "<": "parseInt(z)<parseInt(m[4])",
+      ">=": "parseInt(z)>=parseInt(m[4])",
+      "<=": "parseInt(z)<=parseInt(m[4])",
+  		"": "z",
+      _resort: true,
+      _prefix: "z=jQuery.curCSS(a,m[3]);"
+    },
 		"[": "jQuery.find(m[2],a).length"
 	},
 
@@ -1917,7 +1933,10 @@
 	},
 
 	// The regular expressions that power the parsing engine
-	parse: [
+	parse: [	
+  	// Match: [&value='test'], [&foo]
+  	"\[ *(&)S *([!*$^=<>]*) *('?"?)(.*?)\4 *\]",
+	
 		// Match: [@value='test'], [@foo]
 		"\[ *(@)S *([!*$^=]*) *('?"?)(.*?)\4 *\]",
 
@@ -1931,62 +1950,62 @@
 		"([:.#]*)S"
 	],
 
-	filter: function(t,r,not) {
-		// Figure out if we're doing regular, or inverse, filtering
-		var g = not !== false ? jQuery.grep :
-			function(a,f) {return jQuery.grep(a,f,true);};
-
-		while ( t && /^[a-z[({<*:.#]/i.test(t) ) {
-
-			var p = jQuery.parse;
-
-			for ( var i = 0; i < p.length; i++ ) {
-		
-				// Look for, and replace, string-like sequences
-				// and finally build a regexp out of it
-				var re = new RegExp(
-					"^" + p[i].replace("S", "([a-z*_-][a-z0-9_-]*)"), "i" );
-
-				var m = re.exec( t );
-
-				if ( m ) {
-					// Re-organize the first match
-					if ( !i )
-						m = ["",m[1], m[3], m[2], m[5]];
-
-					// Remove what we just matched
-					t = t.replace( re, "" );
-
-					break;
-				}
-			}
-
-			// :not() is a special case that can be optimized by
-			// keeping it out of the expression list
-			if ( m[1] == ":" && m[2] == "not" )
-				r = jQuery.filter(m[3],r,false).r;
-
-			// Otherwise, find the expression to execute
-			else {
-				var f = jQuery.expr[m[1]];
-				if ( f.constructor != String )
-					f = jQuery.expr[m[1]][m[2]];
-
-				// Build a custom macro to enclose it
-				eval("f = function(a,i){" +
-					( m[1] == "@" ? "z=jQuery.attr(a,m[3]);" : "" ) +
-					"return " + f + "}");
-
-				// Execute it against the current filter
-				r = g( r, f );
-			}
-		}
-
-		// Return an array of filtered elements (r)
-		// and the modified expression string (t)
-		return { r: r, t: t };
-	},
-
+  filter: function(t,r,not) {
+  	// Figure out if we're doing regular, or inverse, filtering
+  	var g = not !== false ? jQuery.grep :
+  		function(a,f) {return jQuery.grep(a,f,true);};
+  
+  	while ( t && /^[a-z[({<*:.#]/i.test(t) ) {
+  
+  		var p = jQuery.parse;
+  
+  		for ( var i = 0; i < p.length; i++ ) {
+  	
+  			// Look for, and replace, string-like sequences
+  			// and finally build a regexp out of it
+  			var re = new RegExp(
+  				"^" + p[i].replace("S", "([a-z*_-][a-z0-9_-]*)"), "i" );
+  
+  			var m = re.exec( t );
+  
+  			if ( m ) {
+  				// Re-organize the first match
+  				if ( jQuery.expr[m[1]]["_resort"] )
+  					m = ["",m[1], m[3], m[2], m[5]];
+  
+  				// Remove what we just matched
+  				t = t.replace( re, "" );
+  
+  				break;
+  			}
+  		}
+  
+  		// :not() is a special case that can be optimized by
+  		// keeping it out of the expression list
+  		if ( m[1] == ":" && m[2] == "not" )
+  			r = jQuery.filter(m[3],r,false).r;
+  
+  		// Otherwise, find the expression to execute
+  		else {
+  			var f = jQuery.expr[m[1]];
+  			if ( f.constructor != String )
+  				f = jQuery.expr[m[1]][m[2]];
+  
+  			// Build a custom macro to enclose it
+  			eval("f = function(a,i){" +
+  				(jQuery.expr[m[1]]["_prefix"] || "") +
+  				"return " + f + "}");
+  
+  			// Execute it against the current filter
+  			r = g( r, f );
+  		}
+  	}
+  
+  	// Return an array of filtered elements (r)
+  	// and the modified expression string (t)
+  	return { r: r, t: t };
+  },
+  
 	/**
 	 * Remove the whitespace from the beginning and end of a string.
 	 *

[yehuda]

The patch is attached

[yehuda]

The patch is at: ​http://www.visualjquery.com/patches/jquery.js.patch

[yehuda]

Another patch, which adds the ability to easily add additional parsing engines, is at: ​http://www.visualjquery.com/patches/jquery.js.patch2

It increases the size of the packed jQuery by a total of 43 bytes

[brandon]

This is nice. I can so see using this. My vote is for inclusion in the core. Great job yehuda!

[john]

The changes have been added to SVN (rev 774) so that you can write the select-by-style selectors as a plugin. The only change is that _resort(m) is a function that takes the match array and reorganizes (as opposed to a boolean value).