Your html isn't valid. * A dl cannot contain a div directly as you've shown, only dts and dds. * The dt and dd elements inside the div#bar need to be directly inside the dl. They can't have a div as a parent. * The dt and dd elements don't close immediately when you put a closing slash in the opening tag. If you want to have them be empty and close them immediately, change
<dt /> to <dt></dt> otherwise the browser ignores the slash in the opening tag and waits for some parsing rule to close the element. For more on that, see http://groups.google.com/group/jquery-en/browse_thread/thread/bef63592011861ba By the time the browser's html parser is done with it, your html might look something like this: <div id="foo"> <dl> <dt> <div id="bar"></div> </dt> <dt></dt> <dd></dd> <dt></dt> <dd id="baz"></dd> </dl> </div> which based on the html you've shared is a lot different than what you started with. - Richard On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 6:39 PM, cewing <cew...@u.washington.edu> wrote: > Hi all, I've got a bit of HTML with the following structure: > > <div id="foo"> > <dl> > <dt /> > <div id="bar"> > <dt /> > <dd /> > <dt /> > <dd id="baz"/> > </div> > </dl> > </div> > > in IE6 and IE7 $("dd#baz").parents() returns an object with 2 nodes in > it, the dl and div#foo. it does not contain div#bar. I assume this > is due to a stricter interpretation of proper DOM structure in IE6 and > IE7 than in FF, Safari, Chrome, Opera, or even IE8 (where div#bar _is_ > present). > > I need to find div#bar. Can someone suggest a traversal-based > workaround to getting there from dd#baz that will work in IE6 and > IE7? The problem with non-traversal based solutions is that the > entire structure you see here may be nested inside each of the dd > elements, and if so, I'd need to find the div#bar _closest_ in the > parents hierarchy to the dd from which I begin. > > If absolutely necessary, I can scrap dl structure and go with a more > pure div-based structure, but I'm trying to hook into some automatic > styling in my chosen framework and that is hung on dl elements. > > Any suggestions? >
