Question

Given the following code, why does the selector property work in the first instance but not the second? Aren’t they both jQuery objects?

<span class='tst'>span</span>​

var tst = $('.tst');
console.log(tst.selector); 
// prints '.tst'

$('.tst').each(function() { console.log(this.selector);});
// prints undefined​​​​​​​

Answer 1

this, in the context of the .each() loop, is not a jQuery object, so the selector property is undefined.

You need to make it a jQuery object first: $(this).selector

However, it should be noted that the selector property will return an empty string while inside the .each() loop.

Edit

If you absolutely need the selector property within the .each(), one option would be to cache your selector:

var cached = $('.tst');

cached.each(function() { 
    console.log(cached.selector); // Will display ".tst"
});

​