I create a variable where I load an html document into it:
result = data;
How would I get the item elements from the result:
$(result+ " item"); -> which doesn't work.
I want to be able to do something like this
$("#result_html item"); -> but with result not #result_html
If I understand:
$(result).find('item');
Assuming I've understood your question correctly, you want to select elements from the loaded document. To do so, you can pass the variable containing the document into jQuery as a context:
var item = $("#result_html item", result);
You could also find the element:
var item = $(result).find("#result_html item");
If I understand you correctly:
$("#" + result + "_html item");
You can do it:
var resultDivId = 'result';
var $result = $('#'+resultDivId);
// find:
$('items', $result);
You can load or retrieve data from anywhere id-ed with jQuery.
If the content is HTML code, you would use the .html:
$('#wherever').html('your html (<p></p><div></div>, etc, goes here and will show in "wherever"');
to retrieve it, variable = $('#wherever').html();
If the content is pure text, like a result of some kind of concatenation or math, you could use plain .text:
$('#wherever').text('This text goes into "wherever"'); or
$('#wherever').text(2+2+4+5);
to retrieve it, variable = $('#wherever').text(); or
variable = $('#wherever').text()+55;
