Question

I have:

<td data-X="1,2">

and when I do:

var Y = $('td').data('X');
Z=Y.split();

it works.

But if I have:

<td data-X="1">

then it doesn’t work.
At least I think that’s what’s happening. I’m getting “Y.split is not a function”, but only sometimes.

Answer 1

.data() is smart. It tries to use a more appropriate type than string for the value – in your case, it’s number.

From the docs:

Every attempt is made to convert the string to a JavaScript value (this includes booleans, numbers, objects, arrays, and null) otherwise it is left as a string. To retrieve the value’s attribute as a string without any attempt to convert it, use the attr() method.