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JavaScript

Alcibiades Montas
Alcibiades Montas
5,974 Points
Posted by Alcibiades Montas
Alcibiades Montas
5,974 Points

When to use $(this) in Jquery?

Hi guys,

I went through the javascript deep dive and now in the JQuery one....sometimes i get confuse with the right usage of $(this). I know we are trying to pass information about a function/method that was previously used but wanted to know best usage...get a different definition!

2 Answers

Matt Campbell
Matt Campbell
9,767 Points
Matt Campbell
Matt Campbell
9,767 Points

Basically, it refers back to the thing that you activated to run the bit of code you're looking at. So Christopher's example is good.

$(this) refers to the button you've clicked to run the function. Just makes life a bit easier rather than writing out the selector over and over. If in doubt, use the selector rather than $(this)

Christopher Hall
Christopher Hall
9,052 Points
Christopher Hall
Christopher Hall
9,052 Points

In jQuery, $(this) is used to refer back to the parent object when you change scope, such as in an anonymous function like so:

$("#submitButton").on('click', function() {
    // within this anonymous function $(this) refers to the jQuery object $("#submitButton")
    // so you can use that as a source to traverse the DOM, add or remove objects, etc.
    $(this).addClass("submittingForm");
});