How do I alert whatever is entered between the single quotes in the jQuery selector?

Question

<a href="#" class="myclass anotherclass" id="myid anotherid">Link</a>

$('.myclass').click(function () {
    var foo = '';
    alert(foo);
});

In this example, I want an alert to pop up as that says: ".myclass".

EDIT: I want to ONLY alert "myclass". Not "myclass anotherclass"

should probably use console.debug, console.log, .warn, .info, alerts to me just seem to get in the way... — Justin E, Mar 04 '14 at 22:19
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2420970/how-can-i-get-selector-from-jquery-object — Justin E, Mar 04 '14 at 22:24
@JustinE thank you, i will use console commands from now on. it's a bad habit. — Derek, Mar 04 '14 at 22:28
Just FYI, your `id` on that anchor is invalid. Elements can only have one `id`, which cannot contain spaces and must be unique within a document. [MDN](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Global_attributes#id) — jmoerdyk, Mar 04 '14 at 22:29

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 04 '14 at 22:25

2

When the click event happens, the jQuery object that was used to bind it no longer exists. Neither the element nor the event handler have any information about the jQuery object that was used. If you want information from the jQuery object, you have to keep it:

var c = $('.myclass');
c.click(function () {
  alert(c.selector);
});

answered Mar 04 '14 at 22:25

Guffa

687,336
108
737
1,005

This is what I was afraid of. – Derek Mar 04 '14 at 22:31

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:20

For the delegated handlers you can get the selector property of handleObj property of the event object:

$(document).on('click', '.myclass', function (e) {
    console.log(e.handleObj.selector); // => .myclass
});

But note, that for direct attached handlers the selector will be null and you need to use @Guffa's workaround

$('.myclass').click(function(e) {
    console.log(e.handleObj.selector); // => null  
});

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 04 '14 at 22:19

0

You can try

alert($(this).attr('class'));

answered Mar 04 '14 at 22:19

George Ant

371
1
6

i forgot my attr...whoops...I don't code in jquery very often as you can atell... – Justin E Mar 04 '14 at 22:19
Yes, but that returns "myclass anotherclass". I want to just return "myclass". – Derek Mar 04 '14 at 22:23

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 04 '14 at 22:26

I am assuming you want to get the selector to the object which ever you used for bind the click event. For usual cases $object.selector do your trick but it would not work in even $(this).selector so as a workaround you can send the parameter like below;

var a = $('.myclass')
a.click({sel : a.selector}, function () {
    alert(this.sel);
});
alert($('.myclass').selector)

How do I alert whatever is entered between the single quotes in the jQuery selector?

4 Answers4