jquery find class and get the value

I am trying to get the value of an input text field.

the HTML is:

<div id="start">
    <p>
        <input type="text" class="myClass" value="my value" name="mytext"/>
    </p>
</div>

The jquery is:

var myVar = $("#start").find('myClass').val();

The problem is that myVar is coming up undefined. Does anyone know why?

Solution 1:

Class selectors are prefixed with a dot. Your .find() is missing that so jQuery thinks you're looking for <myClass> elements.

var myVar = $("#start").find('.myClass').val();

var myVar = $("#start").find('.myClass').first().val();