Is there a reason why JQuery tends to use method chaining rather than nested methods?

Question

For example JQuery tends to have methods all in a line using the dot, but other languages and frameworks have functions or methods nested inside each other. How would this affect the way we use chained methods rather than nested?

Answer 1 · 2015-10-20T15:47:23Z

October 20, 2015 3:47pm

Chaining lets you run multiple jQuery methods in a single statement. This means you can run several jQuery commands on the same element, one after the other. The primary benefit of this technique over using nesting is that the browser only needs to find the element once.

While the performance difference is negligible when running small programs, it can be important in larger ones.

Chaining can sometimes result in pretty long lines of code. Keep in mind that jQuery is pretty flexible when it comes to whitespace. You can often make chained methods easier to read by including line breaks after each method call.

// The following two bits of code are the same as far as jQuery is concerned.

$(".heading").css("color", "#424242").slideUp(1200).slideDown(1200);

$(".heading").css("color", "#424242")
    .slideUp(1200)
    .slideDown(1200);

Hopefully that helps to clarify why chaining is so common, and the options you have to make it more legible. Happy coding! :)

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Brendan Whiting

Brendan Whiting

Is there a reason why JQuery tends to use method chaining rather than nested methods?

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rydavim

rydavim