In jQuery, what is the difference between 'ancestor descendent' and 'parent > child'?

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I'm rather busy trying to finish something without being sidetracked by yet another adventure in a new tech, so I'm taking the lazy approach.

The jQuery API browser lists these two selectors, but the parent child one never works when I think it will, but the descendent one does, and vice versa. What's the dope on these selectors?

Posted 31-Dec-09 23:30pm

Brady Kelly

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AspDotNetDev · Accepted Answer · 2010-01-01T01:24:00

I'm no expert (in fact, I'm an ignoramus when it comes to jQuery), but ancestor and descendent would typically refer to parents of parents of parents (etc.) and children of children of children (etc.), respectively. So, child/parent are direct relations and ancestor/descendent are recursive.