Question

I am working on a script and not sure why this isn’t working

function moveIn($selector) {
if( $( $selector[left] ) != null ){
    $direction = 'left';
}else{
    $direction = 'right';
}

This is does work:

if( $( '#hello[left]' ) != null ){

This is essentially what I am trying to get spit out. It seems the brackets are causing the problem. How else would this be written? Tips for future coding?
Thanks

Entire function:

function moveIn($selector) {
if( $( $selector + '[left]' ) != null ){
    $direction = 'left';
}else{
    $direction = 'right';
}
var animation = {};
    animation[$direction] = 0;
$($selector).animate(animation, 1500);
}

Answer 1

Assuming you’re passing "#hello" as the selector, you are then trying to get the left property of a string, which doesn’t exist.

"#hello[left]", on the other hand, searches for an element with the ID hello and a left attribute.

They are not the same. Try $selector+"[left]"