filer --jquery

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

<ul> <li><strong>list</strong> item 1 - one strong tag</li> <li><strong>list</strong> item <strong>2</strong> - two <span>strong tags</span></li> <li>list item 3</li> <li>list item 4</li> <li>list item 5</li> <li>list item 6</li> </ul>

We can select the list items, then filter them based on their contents:

1 2 3

$('li').filter(function(index) { return $('strong', this).length == 1; }).css('background-color', 'red');