Question

current code

I’ve built function to do something over collection of jQuery elements:

var collection = $([]); //empty collection

I add them with:

collection = collection.add(e);

and remove with:

collection = collection.not(e);

It’s pretty straightforward solution, works nicely.

problem

Now, I would like to have an object consisting of various settings set to any jQuery element, i.e.:

function addObject(e){
  var o = {
    alpha: .6 //float
    base: {r: 255, g: 255, b: 255} //color object
  }

  e.data('settings', o);
}

But when I pass jQuery object/element to function (i.e. as e), calling e.data doesn’t work, although it would be simplest and really nice solution.

question

If I have an "collection" of jQuery elements, what is the simplest way of storing some data for each element of set?

Answer 1

Ah, solved it already 🙂

last version:

This is somewhat simplified code:

function setData(e,key,data){
  if(typeof(e)==string){ e = $(e); }

   $(e).data(key,data);
}

solution

Problem was, that I wanted to keep myself option to add element via $('element'), 'element', or $(this), so I had to add typeof check before setting data – the same way jQuery works.

if I’m adding element as selector only, it’s $(e), if I’m adding jQuery object, it’s e:

function setData(e,key,data){
  if(typeof(e)==string){
    $(e).data(key,data);
  }else{
    e.data(key,data);
  }
}

So you all get upvote, and I’ll pick myself as a winner in two days, so anyone who will stumble upon this question will know what to do (clearly, tested, works :]) and why 🙂

Edit: note: This probably isn’t final version – I have read more documentation, so this setData function supports all types which jQuery.add supports.