jQuery [attribute^=value] Selector

Last Updated : 11 Jul, 2025

The jQuery [attribute^=value] selector is used to select all elements with a given attribute specified by an attribute parameter that starts with the word specified by value parameter.

Syntax:

$("[attribute^='value']")

Parameters: This selector contains two parameters which are listed below:

attribute: It is used to specify the attributes which need to select (any html element).
value: It contains the string from which the value of every selected element's value should start.

Example 1: This example uses [attribute^=value] selector to select those elements whose class name starts with top.

HTML

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>

<head>
    <title>
        jQuery [attribute^=value] Selector
    </title>
    <script src=
"https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.3.1/jquery.min.js">
    </script>
</head>

<body>
    <h3 class="top-heading">
        Welcome to GeeksforGeeks
    </h3>
    <p class="top-content">
        A Computer Science portal for geeks.<br /> It
        contains well written, well thought and well
        explained<br /> computer science and
        programming articles
    </p>
    <p class="topcoder">
        Competitive programming is not tough.
    </p>
    <p class="be-on-top">
        Every one should learn Programming.
    </p>
    <!-- Script to use attribute^=value selector -->
    <script>
        $(document).ready(function () {
            let select = $("[class^='top']")
            select.css({
                background: "green"
            })
        });
    </script>
</body>

</html>

Output:

Example 2: This example uses [attribute^=value] selector to select those elements whose class name starts with top.

HTML

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>

<head>
    <title>
        jQuery [attribute^=value] Selector
    </title>
    <style>
        div {
            width: 50px;
            height: 50px;
            background-color: yellow;
            margin: 20px;
        }
    </style>
</head>

<body>
    <!-- All div selected whose class
    starts with top -->
    <div class="top">
        One
    </div>
    <div class="top-only">
        Two
    </div>
    <div class="top second-class">
        Three
    </div>
    <div class="first top">
        Four
    </div>
    <div class="first top third">
        Five
    </div>
    <script src=
"https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.3.1/jquery.min.js">
    </script>
    <!-- Script to use [attribute^=value] selector -->
    <script>
        $(document).ready(function () {
            let select = $("[class^='top']");
            select.css({
                background: "green"
            });
        });
    </script>
</body>

</html>