jQuery Selector Performance

I just got done spending a few hours debugging some slow jQuery and thought that I should share the summary of my findings with the world at large. Always try to use an id or class designation when selecting DOM elements. For example, on a page with about a megabyte of HTML I had this selector:

var firstRow = ("#aspxGrid table tr td table tr:first");

That one line took nearly eight seconds to execute. I poked around in the HTML a bit and was eventually able to change it to (approximately):

var firstRow = ("tr#_DXHeadersRow");

That line now executed in just one millisecond. Say it with me, "just one millisecond". I hope you've learned something today.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009 6:47 PM
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