jQuery – Selecting the first in the first of a

I have the following markup:

<tr>
    <td>
        <a>foo</a>
    </td>
    <td>bar</td>
    <td>
       <a class="delete-btn">delete</a>
    </td> 
</tr>

I’ve already hooked up a click event handler using jquery $(".delete-btn") the problem is that inside the click event handler I need the text of the first element (foo).

I’m already getting the value I need with this call:

$(this).closest("tr").children().first().children().first("a")

but I feel it’s too verbose. Is there a better way to accomplish this?

Answer

I don’t like this either, but… it’s exactly what you’re looking for:

$(this).closest("tr").find("> td:first-child > a");