Jquery - Finding what element $(this) is [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Can jQuery provide the tag name?

Hi!

This question is so basic i am ashamed asking but i tried to find the answer for 30 minutes without any result.

How do i find out what kind of element has been clicked in the code below.

$('*').click(function (event) {
 var this_element = $(this).???;
 return false;
})

What i am looking for is to have the this_element variable set to 'a' if it's a link, 'p' if it's a paragraph 'div' if...

Thanks!

Guncotton

See: #342400 and #1532831 and #1864651 ... – Press

by the way, should include event.stopPropagation(); to stop your click from being passed along to parent elements for no good reason. see the api docs: api.jquery.com/get – Suh

@Suh - return false; in jQuery event handles .stopPropagation() and .preventDefault() – Incommunicable

ah, did not realize! Thank you @gnarf. – Suh

Answer 1

Try this:

$('*').click(function (event) {
    var this_element = this.tagName.toLowerCase();
    return false;
});

The this pointer refers to the actual element being acted upon. As part of the DOM Level 2 core, all DOM elements have a property called .tagName.

Afterdinner

Be sure to .toLowerCase() some browsers implement all caps for .tagName while others don't. – Incommunicable

It really depends on what you're doing with the tag name. It may not matter. But fair enough, I'll make the change. – Afterdinner

Answer 2

$(this).get(0).tagName;

Suh

um, -1 for what? it works: jsbin.com/akohe/edit – Suh

donno, but it is somewhat redundant - $(this).get(0) should always equal this. – Press

only true in this specific case (clicking on an element). $(this) may contain more than one DOM element… – Suh

Well, sure... If this happened to be a selector string, or an array of elements, or some such. But that's not really relevant to this question. – Press

I just get undefined values when I use this – Tapeworm