CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptjquery
user366312
user366312

Reputation: 16894

What is the meaning of symbol $ in jQuery?

What does the $ sign in jQuery stand for?

Upvotes: 134

Views: 110382

Answers (11)

Lance Fisher
Lance Fisher

Reputation: 25813

Strange but true, you can use "$" as a function name in JavaScript. It is shorthand for jQuery(). Which you can use if you want. jQuery can be ran in compatibility mode if another library is using the $ already. Just use jQuery.noConflict(). $ is pretty commonly used as a selector function in JS.

In jQuery the $ function does much more than select things though.

  1. You can pass it a selector to get a collection of matching elements from the DOM.
  2. You can pass it a function to run when the document is ready (similar to body.onload() but better).
  3. You can pass it a string of HTML to turn into a DOM element which you can then inject into the document.
  4. You can pass it a DOM element or elements that you want to wrap with the jQuery object.

Here is the documentation: https://api.jquery.com/jQuery/

Upvotes: 51

Elzo Valugi
Elzo Valugi

Reputation: 27856

It is syntactic sugar. It is not specific only to jQuery; other libraries use it as well. You can look for a full-details article about the use of dollar sign in JavaScript here.

Upvotes: 34

Onic Team
Onic Team

Reputation: 1658

A $ sign to define/access jQuery

Upvotes: 4

Sangkun Park
Sangkun Park

Reputation: 19

Look at the jQuery library file.

//Expose jQuery and $ identifiers.

if ( typeof noGlobal === strundefined ) {
    window.jQuery = window.$ = jQuery;
}

Global $ points to jQuery.

Upvotes: 1

tommydevs
tommydevs

Reputation: 147

The $ is syntactic sugar like @Elzo mentioned. Nobody actually answered your question though. The $ is shorthand in jQuery for window.jQuery, so you don't have to type it every single time.

Upvotes: 5

James Z.
James Z.

Reputation: 119

$ is just another variable. In the case of jQuery this references the function jQuery.

Upvotes: 4

Brian
Brian

Reputation: 2261

It's short for jQuery. The object where all the jQuery functionality live.

Upvotes: 7

Andrea
Andrea

Reputation: 2077

The jQuery object :)

From the jQuery documentation:

By default, jQuery uses "$" as a shortcut for "jQuery"

So, using $("#id") or jQuery("#id") is the same.

Upvotes: 145

void
void

Reputation: 386

$ sign to define/access jQuery $(selector).action()

http://www.w3schools.com/jquery/jquery_syntax.asp

Upvotes: 1

Daniel Moura
Daniel Moura

Reputation: 7966

As said in other answers $ is a shortcut to the jQuery function.

Some JavaScript libraries uses $ too (example: prototype). To avoid conflict with those other libraries jQuery provides jQuery.noConflict() function. Calling this function the control of the $ variable goes back to the other library that first implemented it. Doing this to use jQuery you can't do this $('div.someClass') anymore, instead jQuery('div.someClass').

Alternatively can do this:

jQuery.noConflict();

jQuery.ready(function($) {
   // use $ for jQuery
}

//use $ for the other library

When writing plugins to avoid problems with the usage of noConflict you can pass 'jQuery' to a function:

function($) {

//use $ writing your plugin

}(jQuery)

Upvotes: 30

googletorp
googletorp

Reputation: 33265

$ is simply a function called jQuery. It is how you access all of the functionality in the jQuery lib.

You can find it here: http://docs.jquery.com/%24

Upvotes: 9

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