How can I get selector from jQuery object

Question

$("*").click(function(){
    $(this); // how can I get selector from $(this) ?
});

Is there an easy way to get selector from $(this)? There is a way to select an element by its selector, but what about getting the selector from element?

Answer 1

Are you trying to get the name of the current tag that was clicked?

If so, do this..

$("*").click(function(){
    alert($(this)[0].nodeName);
});

You can't really get the "selector", the "selector" in your case is *.

Answer 2

http://www.selectorgadget.com/ is a bookmarklet designed explicitly for this use case.

That said, I agree with most other people in that you should just learn CSS selectors yourself, trying to generate them with code is not sustainable. :)

Answer 3

I was getting multiple elements even after above solutions, so i extended dds1024 work, for even more pin-pointing dom element.

e.g. DIV:nth-child(1) DIV:nth-child(3) DIV:nth-child(1) ARTICLE:nth-child(1) DIV:nth-child(1) DIV:nth-child(8) DIV:nth-child(2) DIV:nth-child(1) DIV:nth-child(2) DIV:nth-child(1) H4:nth-child(2)

Code:

function getSelector(el)
{
    var $el = jQuery(el);

    var selector = $el.parents(":not(html,body)")
                .map(function() { 
                                    var i = jQuery(this).index(); 
                                    i_str = ''; 

                                    if (typeof i != 'undefined') 
                                    {
                                        i = i + 1;
                                        i_str += ":nth-child(" + i + ")";
                                    }

                                    return this.tagName + i_str; 
                                })
                .get().reverse().join(" ");

    if (selector) {
        selector += " "+ $el[0].nodeName;
    }

    var index = $el.index();
    if (typeof index != 'undefined')  {
        index = index + 1;
        selector += ":nth-child(" + index + ")";
    }

    return selector;
}

Answer 4

Taking in account some answers read here I'd like to propose this:

function getSelectorFromElement($el) {
  if (!$el || !$el.length) {
    return ;
  }

  function _getChildSelector(index) {
    if (typeof index === 'undefined') {
      return '';
    }

    index = index + 1;
    return ':nth-child(' + index + ')';
  }

  function _getIdAndClassNames($el) {
    var selector = '';

    // attach id if exists
    var elId = $el.attr('id');
    if(elId){
      selector += '#' + elId;
    }

    // attach class names if exists
    var classNames = $el.attr('class');
    if(classNames){
      selector += '.' + classNames.replace(/^\s+|\s+$/g, '').replace(/\s/gi, '.');
    }

    return selector;
  }

  // get all parents siblings index and element's tag name,
  // except html and body elements
  var selector = $el.parents(':not(html,body)')
    .map(function() {
      var parentIndex = $(this).index();

      return this.tagName + _getChildSelector(parentIndex);
    })
    .get()
    .reverse()
    .join(' ');

  if (selector) {
    // get node name from the element itself
    selector += ' ' + $el[0].nodeName +
      // get child selector from element ifself
      _getChildSelector($el.index());
  }

  selector += _getIdAndClassNames($el);

  return selector;
}

Maybe useful to create a jQuery plugin?

Answer 5

The best answer would be

var selector = '#something';

$(selector).anything(function(){
  console.log(selector);
});

Answer 6

Just add a layer over the $ function this way:

$ = (function(jQ) { 
	return (function() { 
		var fnc = jQ.apply(this,arguments);
		fnc.selector = (arguments.length>0)?arguments[0]:null;
		return fnc; 
	});
})($);

Now you can do things like

$("a").selector

and will return "a" even on newer jQuery versions.