Question

Say I have some actions binded to a link ( with .click or .live), and I want to do the same thing later, but I don’t want duplicated code. Which is the correct way and why?

This:

$('#link').click(function(){
 //do stuff
});

//called later
$('#link').trigger('click');

OR:

$('#link').click(function(){
  do_stuff();
});

//called later
do_stuff();

//defined here
function do_stuff(){
   //do stuff
}

Answer 1

Actually, you only need to distinguish between whether or not you’re accessing the event object within the event handler. Another difference is that the context of that invoked handler might change, so this won’t point to the invoked node when called directly.

If you’re accessing this or the event object, you indeed should use .trigger to execute the handler. You could also pass in all necesarry data yourself by manually invoking the method, but why invent the wheel.

Otherwise, you’re just fine in directly calling that function from wherever you have access to it.