title: How to select special attributes (prefix:name="")?
body: <p>how do I select special attributes like 'user:name' or 'city:id' using jQuery?</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;div user:name="Ropstah"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
  &lt;span city:id="4"&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Javascript</p>
  
  <pre><code>//this works:
  alert($('div').attr("user:name"));  // alerts 'Ropstah'
  
  //this doesn't work:
  alert($('div[user:name]').attr("user:name"));    //error
  alert($('div[user\\:name]').attr("user:name"));    //error even with special character escaping...
  </code></pre>