Question

This is a simple question regarding $(this) and how it is defined and redefined in a chunk of code.

$('input').live('click', function() {
    $(this).addClass('active');
    if( question.find('.false').is(':visible') ){
      question.find('.false').hide("blind",{},350);  
    }
})

$(this) is unambiguously the input on the second line. Now, when we start the if statement, I have a new point of interest: question.find('.false'). If $(this) does not change to the new definition, is there an easier way to refer to question.find('.false')?

A follow-up for clarity

If I want to refer to question.find('.false') a few times in a longer version of the loop above, what’s the best way to refer to it?

1. Define a new variable before the loop:

   var qfalse = question.find('.false')
   if( qfalse...){...qfalse this, qfalse that...
   

2. Something else?

Answer 1

this will keep it’s value until some new context redefines this (like in a .each() callback). It keeps it’s value everywhere in your function.

You can do what you were trying to do a bit simpler. Rather than using the if test, just require the selector to be visible and only operate on the visible ones.

$('input').live('click', function() {
    $(this).addClass('active');
    question.find('.false:visible').hide("blind",{},350);
})

In practice, you can call hide on all of them and the ones that are already hidden will be just ignored by the .hide() method.

$('input').live('click', function() {
    $(this).addClass('active');
    question.find('.false').hide("blind",{},350);
})

If you want to use the same jQuery selector object in multiple places in your function and you can’t just chain multiple methods together, then you would just use a local variable to assign the selector to and then use that variable:

$('input').live('click', function() {
    $(this).addClass('active');
    var $falseQuestions = question.find('.false');
    // do whatever other operations you want on/with $falseQuestions here
    $falseQuestions.hide("blind",{},350);
})