Question

I am using Rails and jQuery, making an ajax call initiated by clicking a link. I setup my application.js file to look like the one proposed here and it works great. The problem I’m having is how can I use $(this) in my say.. update.js.erb file to represent the link I clicked? I don’t want to have to assign an ID to every one, then recompile that id in the callback script..

EDIT
To give a simple example of something similar to what I’m trying to do (and much easier to explain): If a user clicks on a link, that deletes that element from a list, the controller would handle the callback, and the callback (which is in question here) would delete the element I clicked on, so in the callback delete.js.erb would just say $(this).fadeOut(); This is why I want to use $(this) so that I dont have to assign an ID to every element (which would be the end of the world, just more verbose markup)

application.js

jQuery.ajaxSetup({ 'beforeSend': function(xhr) {xhr.setRequestHeader("Accept", "text/javascript,application/javascript,text/html")} })

function _ajax_request(url, data, callback, type, method) {
    if (jQuery.isFunction(data)) {
        callback = data;
        data = {};
    }
    return jQuery.ajax({
        type: method,
        url: url,
        data: data,
        success: callback,
        dataType: type
    });
}

jQuery.extend({
    put: function(url, data, callback, type) {
        return _ajax_request(url, data, callback, type, 'PUT');
    },
    delete_: function(url, data, callback, type) {
        return _ajax_request(url, data, callback, type, 'DELETE');
    }
});

jQuery.fn.submitWithAjax = function() {
    this.unbind('submit', false);
    this.submit(function() {
        $.post(this.action, $(this).serialize(), null, "script");
        return false;
    })
    return this;
};

// Send data via get if <acronym title="JavaScript">JS</acronym> enabled
jQuery.fn.getWithAjax = function() {
    this.unbind('click', false);
    this.click(function() {
        $.get($(this).attr("href"), $(this).serialize(), null, "script");
        return false;
    })
    return this;
};

// Send data via Post if <acronym title="JavaScript">JS</acronym> enabled
jQuery.fn.postWithAjax = function() {
    this.unbind('click', false);
    this.click(function() {
        $.post($(this).attr("href"), $(this).serialize(), null, "script");
        return false;
    })
    return this;
};

jQuery.fn.putWithAjax = function() {
    this.unbind('click', false);
    this.click(function() {
        $.put($(this).attr("href"), $(this).serialize(), null, "script");
        return false;
    })
    return this;
};

jQuery.fn.deleteWithAjax = function() {
    this.removeAttr('onclick');
    this.unbind('click', false);
    this.click(function() {
        $.delete_($(this).attr("href"), $(this).serialize(), null, "script");
        return false;
    })
    return this;
};

// This will "ajaxify" the links
function ajaxLinks(){
    $('.ajaxForm').submitWithAjax();
    $('a.get').getWithAjax();
    $('a.post').postWithAjax();
    $('a.put').putWithAjax();
    $('a.delete').deleteWithAjax();
}

show.html.erb

<%= link_to 'Link Title', article_path(a, :sentiment => Article::Sentiment['Neutral']), :class => 'put' %>

The combination of the two things will call update.js.erb in rails, the code in that file is used as the callback of the ajax ($.put in this case)

update.js.erb

// user feedback
$("#notice").html('<%= flash[:notice] %>');

// update the background color
$(this OR e.target).attr("color", "red");

Answer 1

This cannot be accomplished, The method in which i am trying to do this makes it impossible, i cannot pass references to javascript objects through views.

Solution was to assign IDs to each item, and refer to them by that.