Question

I’m generating an unordered list through javascript (using jQuery). Each listitem must receive its own event listener for the ‘click’-event. However, I’m having trouble getting the right callback attached to the right item. A (stripped) code sample might clear things up a bit:

for(class_id in classes) {
    callback = function() { this.selectClass(class_id) };
    li_item = jQuery('<li></li>')
                .click(callback);
}

Actually, more is going on in this iteration, but I didn’t think it was very relevant to the question. In any case, what’s happening is that the callback function seems to be referenced rather than stored (& copied). End result? When a user clicks any of the list items, it will always execute the action for the last class_id in the classes array, as it uses the function stored in callback at that specific point.

I found dirty workarounds (such as parsing the href attribute in an enclosed a element), but I was wondering whether there is a way to achieve my goals in a ‘clean’ way. If my approach is horrifying, please say so, as long as you tell me why 🙂 Thanks!

Answer 1

This is a better cleaner way of doing what you want.

Add the class_id info onto the element using .data().

Then use .live() to add a click handler to all the new elements, this avoids having x * click functions.

for(class_id in classes) {
    li_item = jQuery('<li></li>').data('class_id', class_id).addClass('someClass');
}

//setup click handler on new li's
$('li.someClass').live('click', myFunction )

function myFunction(){
   //get class_id
   var classId = $(this).data('class_id');
   //do something
}