Get Data Attribute of First Child Element with jQuery

Question

I'm trying to get the data attributes of the first and last li in a ul. Something along the lines of...

var theTimeline = document.getElementById("the_timeline");
var timeline_items = $(theTimeline).filter('li');
var first_date = timline_items.lastChild.getAttribute("data-pubdate");
var last_date = timline_items.lastChild.getAttribute("data-pubdate");

Would any one be kind enough to give me a shove int the right direction?

Answer 1

First:

$("#the_timeline li").first().data("pubdate");

last:

$("#the_timeline li:last").data("pubdate");

Answer 2

Since you've tagged it as jquery, you can do:

$('#the_timeline > li').first().data("pubdate");

And:

$('#the_timeline > li:last').data("pubdate");