Create jquery item from string without actually inserting into DOM?
<p>Is it possible to create a jquery object that I can perform jquery functions on from just a string representation?</p>

<p>I.e.</p>

<pre><code>var item = '&lt;div&gt;hello&lt;/div&gt;';
???
alert(item.html());
</code></pre>

<p>I think I could do it by adding it to the DOM using <code>append()</code>, then reselecting it, but i dont really want to do that as it seems horribly ineffcient.</p>

<p>EDIT: Thanks for all the replies</p>
