Question

I’ve got a fairly straight forward question. Why can’t I use $('a.view').attr('id') (Ref //1 in code) in my click function? I tried it and it failed to work but this.id works. I guess I primarily want to know the difference in the context of the code below:

displayRecord.php (The following link calls the click function):

echo '<td><a href="#" style="text-decoration: none;" id="'.$data['id'].'" class="view" ><input type="button" value="View" /></a></td>';

editTicket.php:

$('a.view').click(
            function(e) 
                {    
                             //1                    
                             var ticket_id = this.id;

                    dlg.load('displayRecord.php?id='+this.id, function(){                           

                    var escalationValue = '';

                    $.post('escalateValue.php',{post_ticket_id:ticket_id}, 
                    function(data) {

                        if (data == 'No'){
                            showCount();
                        }
                    });

                    dlg.dialog('open');

                });

            });

Answer 1

$('a.view').attr('id') can match multiple elements, if you have multiple anchors with a view class, so you will not necessarily get the clicked element if you use it within a click event. this.id refers only to the element that was clicked and would also be the fastest way, but to demonstrate you could also do:

$(this).attr('id'); // in the click event