How can I get a reference to a node directly after it is appended?

Question

I have a situation where I'm appending a node inside an element and would like a reference to it right away.

At the moment I do something along these lines:

var children = $("#elem").append("<p>hello</p>").children();
var current = children[children.length -1]

Can this be done more cleanly with jQuery?

I know, I can write a helper function, but was wondering if there is something built in.

Answer 1

Is this what you mean?

var current = $("#elem").append("<p>hello</p>").children(':last');

Answer 2

You can do

var current = $('<p>hello</p>').appendTo('#elem');