Jquery check if element exist and if conditon
<p>I have code like this:</p>

<pre><code>&lt;?php if ($this-&gt;session-&gt;userdata('permission') == 4 || $this-&gt;session-&gt;userdata('permission') == 3) : ?&gt;
            &lt;select name="caffe" id="caffe"&gt;
                &lt;?php foreach($caffe as $key) : ?&gt;
                &lt;option value="&lt;?php echo $key['id_caffe'] ?&gt;"&gt;&lt;?php echo $key['name'] ?&gt;&lt;/option&gt;
                &lt;?php endforeach; ?&gt;
            &lt;/select&gt;
            &lt;div id="gll_select"&gt;
                &lt;script&gt;
                 var caffe = $("#caffe").val();
                 var cff_name = $("#caffe option:first").text();
                 $("#gll_select").load("&lt;?php echo base_url() ?&gt;form/galleries", {id : caffe}, function(){                 
                          $("#gll").on('change', function(){
            var cff_name  = $("#caffe option:selected").text();
            get_gallery(cff_name);
            console.log(cff_name);
        }); 
                 });  
                &lt;/script&gt;
            &lt;/div&gt;

            &lt;?php else : ?&gt;

            &lt;input type="hidden" name="caffe_name" id="caffe_name" value="&lt;?php echo $caffe_name ?&gt;" /&gt;
            &lt;input type="hidden" name="caffe_id" id="caffe_id" value="&lt;?php  if(isset($caffe_id)) echo $caffe_id; ?&gt;" /&gt;
            &lt;div id="gll_select"&gt;
                &lt;?php if (isset($gallery)) : ?&gt;
            &lt;select name="gll" id="gll"&gt;
        &lt;?php foreach ($gallery as $key) : ?&gt;
            &lt;option value="&lt;?php echo $key['id_gallery'] . " " . $key['name'] ?&gt;"&gt;&lt;?php echo $key['name'] ?&gt;&lt;/option&gt;
        &lt;?php endforeach; ?&gt;
            &lt;?php endif; ?&gt;
            &lt;/select&gt;
            &lt;/div&gt;

            &lt;?php endif ?&gt; 
</code></pre>

<p>and jquery code like this:</p>

<pre><code>if ($("#caffe".length)){var cff_name = $("#caffe option:first").text(); }
    else{var cff_name = $("#caffe_name").val();}
</code></pre>

<p>Problem is following - the first statement is always true (<strong>#caffe</strong> will not exist if <code>PHP IF statement is FALSE</code>). What seems to be the problem?</p>
