How to select the previous element in jquery

Question

I have this html mark up:

<td>
    <label for="fadsf"> fadsf</label>
</td>
<td>
    <a class="editLink" href="/Admin/MenuManagement?Length=5">Edit</a>
</td>

What i want to do is to select the text in the label. But I find it difficult to do.

I tried this:

    $(".editLink").click(function () {
    alert(
     $(".editLink").prev("td").html()
     );
});

But it returns null.

Answer 1

$(".editLink").click(function () {
             $(".editLink").parent().prev().find("label").html()
        });

Answer 2

prev() and next() are used for siblings. You need to find the previous <td> , then the label inside it:

$(".editLink").closest('td').prev('td').find('label')

Answer 3

You are looking for parent() Not prev() selecting the previous sibling where there is none in your case.

See api.jquery.com/prev/