CODEWITHSUNDEEP
jqueryeventstarget
Charles Wyke-Smith
Charles Wyke-Smith

Reputation: 2507

Use jQuery to get text of target

Trying to get the text of an event's target element from an unordered list

<ul>
  <li>Item 1</li>
  <li>Item 2</li>
  <li>Item 3</li>
</ul>

with code like this

$('ul').click(function() {
theEl=(event.target.text);
});

When I console log

event.target

it returns

 <li>Item 1</li>

and

event.target.text

returns undefined

I just want 'Item 1'. I know I have done this before - it must be late...thanks for any assistance :)

Upvotes: 16

Views: 38830

Answers (6)

Jeremy Lynch
Jeremy Lynch

Reputation: 7230

Solution for Vanilla JS:

event.target.options[event.target.selectedIndex].text

Upvotes: 0

Karthik Sagar
Karthik Sagar

Reputation: 444

Try this -> event.target.innerText

Upvotes: 1

kahonmlg
kahonmlg

Reputation: 4049

event.target.textContent

It is javascript access too. I recommend to you execute 'Chrome' (or Firefox) javascript console with Ctrl+Shift+J. Write in your code: console.log(event) and watch the out on console. You can watch every attribute of object.

Upvotes: 2

Travis J
Travis J

Reputation: 82357

The reason event.target.text is undefined is because HTMLElement does not have that method or property defined. However, jQuery does have text() which is what you were looking for. In order to access jQuery methods or properties, you need to wrap the current HTMLElement in a jquery object. This is done by passing it to jQuery, who then creates a function object with it, and the jQuery prototype which exposes the API.

jQuery(element);//in general
$(event.target).text();//for your situation

Upvotes: 2

Niet the Dark Absol
Niet the Dark Absol

Reputation: 324840

You're confusing raw JS and jQuery.

In jQuery, you'd use $(event.target).text()

However, it's much more efficient in JavaScript: event.target.firstChild.nodeValue

EDIT: Here's a JSPerf as proof.

Upvotes: 10

JeffB
JeffB

Reputation: 1867

Use jQuery's text function:

$(event.target).text()

Upvotes: 28

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