jQuery - get element type

Question

I am trying to figure out how to get an element type in jQuery.

If I click on something I would like the console.log to write out what kind of element I clicked, if it is a link, button, checkbox and so on.

Something like this:

console.log("time: " + Date() + "  element type: " + $.(this).type);

This does not work, except for the date which works fine.

possible duplicate of [Get element type with jQuery](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8388470/get-element-type-with-jquery) — InbetweenWeekends, Jul 29 '15 at 16:15

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:51

Use the nodeName property of the DOM object. There is no need to create a new jQuery object for this:

console.log("time: " + Date() + " element type: " + this.nodeName);

this is the element containing the click event. If you want to know which element inside it got clicked you can use the target property of the event object:

$('a').click(function(event) {
    console.log("time: " + Date() + " element type: " + event.target.nodeName);
});

For the difference between nodeName and tagName see also this question on StackOverflow.

jQuery - get element type

1 Answers1