How to pass $(this) properly in click jQuery function

wayfare picture wayfare · Mar 5, 2012 · Viewed 93.4k times · Source

I am trying to make a tictactoe project in jQuery and I am having a major problem...

The tiles are in <td> tags and I am trying to make it so that when the user clicks the the tile, it calls the "marked" function.

If we now look into the "marked" function, $(this) is intended to be the <td> node that the function was called from.

However, it wasn't doing anything so I checked the console and apparently $(this) was containing the DOM Window object.

Is there anyway I can send the right kind of $(this) to the "marked" function?

Thank you!

<script type="text/javascript">

    var TURN_X = false;
    var TURN_O = true;

    var turn = false;  // this is to see whos turn it is.

    $(document).ready(function(){

        var listCells = $.makeArray($("td"));
        $("td").click(function(){marked(listCells)});   //THIS IS WHERE I HAVE PROBLEMS
        return false;
    });

    function marked(arr)
    {
        console.log($(this));  // THIS CONSOLE LOG RETURNS "DOM Window"
        $(this).addClass("marked");

        if(turn == TURN_X)
        {
        this.innerHTML = "X";
        turn = false;
        }
        else
        this.innerHTML = "O";

        var tileNum = $(this).attr("id");
    }

Answer

Tomalak picture Tomalak · Mar 5, 2012

You code does not follow the right principles.

$(function(){
    var TURN_X = "X",
        TURN_O = "O", 
        turn   = TURN_O,
        $listCells = $("td");

    function marked() {        // define event handler
        var $this   = $(this),
            tileNum = $this.attr("id");

        if ( !($this.hasClass("marked") ) {
            $this.addClass("marked").text(turn);
            turn = (turn == TURN_X) ? TURN_O : TURN_X;
        }
    }

    $listCells.click(marked);  // attach event handler
});
  1. Wrap everything in the document.ready function. Avoid global variables wherever possible.
  2. Make use of the fact that jQuery manages this for you. this will always be what you expect if you pass callback functions directly instead of calling them yourself.