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Philipp Antar
7,216 Points$.inArray()
In the chapter Form Validation and Manipulation > jQuery Utility Methods we used $.inArray(). I find this syntax $.inArray quite strange because it uses the selector $ without parentheses.
Also, and possibly related, in the jQuery documentation I noticed that some methods have jQuery in front of them (like jQuery.each) while others don't (like .add).
Whats up with that?
4 Answers
Andrew Chalkley
Treehouse Guest TeacherI wrote a post here on the Treehouse blog that discusses how the $ is an alias for jQuery – they are the same thing.
When you call a method on jQuery like jQuery.inArray() you're doing it on jQuery itself not jQuery selected elements. This is why they're called Utility Methods as they don't fit in the normal selector syntax. Their job is to simplify or smoothing out JavaScript implementations. It doesn't following the selector syntax as they are not performing an operation on the document's elements.
Philipp Antar
7,216 PointsThank you! That cleared things up quite a bit.
Andrew Chalkley
Treehouse Guest TeacherGood question!
Sam Donald
36,305 PointsI hat jQuery!!!!! lol
here's my code.
var values = $("input.required").map(function(){
return $(this).val();})
return $.inArray("Andrew", values) != -1;
Does the $.inArray have to be inside the function? if so this code still doesn't work I also tried. return $.inArray(true, values) == "Andrew;
I don't know why Markdown isn't working
Andrew Chalkley
Treehouse Guest TeacherI added another line between the "here's my code line" from the code and that fixed the markdown.
The issue is is that you are returning on the last line. The return keyword cannot be used outside of a function call. Remove the return and you'll be good to go.