Question

I try to get an attribute of a div element using jQUery 1.6.2

html

<div id="scroller" loop="2"></div>

js

$('#scroller').attr('loop') 

The above js would always return undefined.

I try to upgrade jquery to 1.6.4, then the same js returns me the word ‘loop’. Is this loop attribute a reserved attribute?

I do this becoz of using a library for scrolling text.http://remysharp.com/2008/09/10/the-silky-smooth-marquee/

Answer 1

What’s really going on is jQuery‘s implementation of attr. loop is a boolean attribute for media (<audio> and <video>) elements, so its presence indicates that the audio or video should loop.

When boolean attributes are used, it is invalid to specify a value other than the attribute name itself. When jQuery checks a boolean attribute, it returns the name of the attribute itself. In this case [loop]‘s value is its name: "loop".

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You shouldn’t be adding custom attributes to elements unless you’re using the [data-] attributes specified in HTML5:

<div id="scroller" data-loop="2"></div>

jQuery supports accessing these [data-] attributes with the data function:

$('#scroller').data('loop'); //returns "2"