jQuery: width() not working

here's my simple code:

var msgbox = $("<div style='width:320px;height:200px;'></div>");
alert(msgbox.width());

the al开发者_Go百科ert gives me zero - what's wrong? why isn't it 320?

thx

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You should insert your div in the document first. Or use .css("width") instead.

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You need to first append the element to the DOM before trying to measure its size:

$('body').append(msgbox);
alert(msgbox.width());