How can I detect if a selector returns null?

if ( $("#anid").length ) {
  alert("element(s) found")
} 
else {
  alert("nothing found")
}

My favourite is to extend jQuery with this tiny convenience:

$.fn.exists = function () {
    return this.length !== 0;
}

Used like:

$("#notAnElement").exists();

More explicit than using length.

I like to do something like this:

$.fn.exists = function(){
    return this.length > 0 ? this : false;
}

So then you can do something like this:

var firstExistingElement = 
    $('#iDontExist').exists() ||      //<-returns false;
    $('#iExist').exists() ||          //<-gets assigned to the variable 
    $('#iExistAsWell').exists();      //<-never runs

firstExistingElement.doSomething();   //<-executes on #iExist

http://jsfiddle.net/vhbSG/

The selector returns an array of jQuery objects. If no matching elements are found, it returns an empty array. You can check the .length of the collection returned by the selector or check whether the first array element is 'undefined'.

You can use any the following examples inside an IF statement and they all produce the same result. True, if the selector found a matching element, false otherwise.

$('#notAnElement').length > 0
$('#notAnElement').get(0) !== undefined
$('#notAnElement')[0] !== undefined