Can I cache $(window) and $(document) in jQuery?

Question

I recently read some articles regarding jQuery performance, and I came up with some weird questions.

• Can/Should I cache $(window)?

  If I did, would it affect resize, scroll, width, scrollTop...etc?

• Can/Should I cache $(document)?

  As we use a lot of mouse actions, should I do var doc = $(document);?

• Can I always cache $(this) in a big block of code?

  As for var self = $(this);, in what condition that self might be different from $(this)?

Answer 1

All three questions: Yes You can!

Neccessery : no

Better performance: maybe

You could try and do a benchmark. But the reason for caching is not to search entire DOM for your selector. Looking up document and window isn't a problem because they are 2 root variables. Caching $(this) depends on situation. See my 2nd tip.

Always cache the parent object you run queries on:

var header = $('#header');
    
var menu = header.find('.menu');
// or
var menu = $('.menu', header);

It’s better to chain the jQuery methods than to cache the selectors:

$('li.menu-item').click(function () {alert('test click');})
                     .css('display', 'block')
                     .css('color', 'red')
                     fadeTo(2, 0.7);

Cache elements that you query often:

var header = $('#header');
var divs = header.find('div');
var forms = header.find('form');

A free extra performance tip:

Selectors fastes to slowest:

Id > Tag > classes

Answer 2

1. Yes, you can cache $(window), and it does help on performance.
   Someone already did a test in jsperf. http://jsperf.com/jquery-window-cache

   The test result is kind of messed up, but you can still "Run test" on your browser to see the difference.

2. Yes, you can cache $(document) as well. I don't use $(document) much, but base on the test I made in jsperf (http://jsperf.com/document-vs-cache), caching $(document) do help on performance a bit too.

3. And yes, you can cache $(this). But this one is different than the other cahces. As you already know, value of $(this) will change depend different situation. For example, if you use $(this) in mouse listener like this....

   $(".button").on("click",function(){
      var $this = $(this);
   }); 
   

   $(this) will change when user click on the button with the class "button", and $("this") will become the object which clicked by user.

   Caching $(this) can help on performance if you use $(this) a lot inside the function. But remember that if you cache $(this) inside the function, the cache will become a local variable instead global, and will be destroy at the end of the function. So you won't able to use it outside the function.

Answer 3

Actual question is, Can I cache $(window) and $(document) in jQuery?

If you want to cache the window or document for further use in the same session, yes you can.

All the variables/functions you created will be garbage collected if user closes the window/session.