> From: pd
>
> I've been hacking with jQuery on and off lately and I've now
> hit the annoying problem of not being able to access simple
> DOM 0 properties unless, apparently, using either of the
> following syntaxes:
>
> $('#foo')[0]
>
> $('#foo').get(0)
pd, just to help clarify... The $() function returns an array of DOM
elements. You access elements of an array, of course, by using [n].
I don't know if I would call this an "annoying problem", it's just the way
it is.
Imagine this code:
var myArray = [
document.getElementById('foo'),
document.getElementById('goo')
];
Now you have an array of two elements, [0] and [1], and each element is a
reference to a DOM element.
If you want the first element of the array, you would use:
myArray[0]
And you could access DOM properties with:
alert( myArray[0].id ); // alerts 'foo'
Or you could do:
var firstElement = myArray[0];
alert( firstElement.id ); // alerts 'foo'
What you couldn't do:
alert( myArray.id ); // alerts undefined
After all, myArray is not a DOM element, it's an *array* of DOM elements.
A jQuery object returned by $() is no different. Whenever you see $(), think
"array of DOM elements".
(Well, it is slightly different - it is not an actual JavaScript Array
object, but it does have .length and [n] properties so it works like an
array for these purposes.)
-Mike
