:empty Selector

empty ( ) version added: 1.0

Description: Select all elements that have no children (including text nodes).

This is the inverse of :parent.

One important thing to note with :empty (and :parent) is that child elements include text nodes.

The W3C recommends that the <p> element have at least one child node, even if that child is merely text (see http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/text.html#edef-P). Some other elements, on the other hand, are empty (i.e. have no children) by definition: <input>, <img>, <br>, and <hr>, for example.

Examples:

Example: Finds all elements that are empty - they don't have child elements or text. 

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <title>css demo</title>

  <style>

  td {
    text-align: center;
  }

  </style>

  <script src="//code.jquery.com/jquery-1.10.2.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
  

<table border="1">
  <tr><td>TD #0</td><td></td></tr>
  <tr><td>TD #2</td><td></td></tr>
  <tr><td></td><td>TD#5</td></tr>
</table>

<script>

$( "td:empty" )
  .text( "Was empty!" )
  .css( "background", "rgb(255,220,200)" );

</script>

  
</body>
</html>

Demo: