Difference between $(document.body) and $('body')

jquery document document-body
user1617640 picture user1617640 · Sep 6, 2012 · Viewed 178.8k times · Source

I am a jQuery beginner and while going through some code examples I found:

$(document.body) and $('body')

Is there any difference between these two?

Answer

Justin Ethier picture Justin Ethier · Sep 6, 2012

They refer to the same element, the difference is that when you say document.body you are passing the element directly to jQuery. Alternatively, when you pass the string 'body', the jQuery selector engine has to interpret the string to figure out what element(s) it refers to.

In practice either will get the job done.

If you are interested, there is more information in the documentation for the jQuery function.

Related questions

$(window).scrollTop() vs. $(document).scrollTop()

What's the difference between: $(window).scrollTop() and $(document).scrollTop() Thanks.

Read More
jQuery - function inside $(document).ready function

Is it correct to create functions inside of $(document).ready(function() { like so: $(document).ready(function() { function callMe() { } }); The function inside of the .ready() does not have to call before DOM is ready and event inside of the ready() is …

Read More
Difference between screen.availHeight and window.height()

I am executing the following Javascript on my browser (Firefox). console.debug("Screen height = "+ screen.availHeight); //outputs 770 console.debug("Window Height ="+ $(window).height()); //outputs 210 (I am using jQuery as well) What is the difference between the two? Is 770 in pixels …

Read More