how is that the jquery function can start with '$'?

Question

if you declare a function in javascript, you can't use the '$' character in the name, so how is that jquery is able to do so? For example:

function myFunction() {
    $("#h01").html("Hello jQuery")
}
$(document).ready(myFunction);

but if i declare a function as so:

function $(a){
// do something
}

javascript shows an error?

Au contraire! You _can_ use `$`. It is a valid name for JS variables/functions. They introduced it back then for compatibility reasons with server-side languages. — Boldewyn, Feb 16 '15 at 20:29
daniel a.white - yes i get that $() is a jquery function returning a jquery object, but my question was how can you name a function as '$'? — dave, Feb 16 '15 at 20:30

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 16 '15 at 20:30

5

IdentifierStart ::
    UnicodeLetter
    $
    _
    \ UnicodeEscapeSequence

$ is fine as a character in the name.

Demo, using the code in the question: http://jsfiddle.net/q02go7dd/

answered Feb 16 '15 at 20:30

guest

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 16 '15 at 20:31

3

try

var $ = function(){
    // do something
};

and you won't get an error.

answered Feb 16 '15 at 20:31

prograhammer

1

ur absolutely right and got the point of my question, thanks! – dave Feb 16 '15 at 20:36

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 16 '15 at 20:32

$ is a short-handed alias for JQuery object itself.

So when you type,

$("#h01").html("Hello jQuery");

you are calling JQuery constructor with parameter "h01".

It's like declaring a function called dave and giving it an alias ß and calling it like that.

dave("h01");

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 16 '15 at 20:32

0

$ is fine :

$myFunction = function(){ alert("hello"); }

$myFunction(); // alerts "hello"

answered Feb 16 '15 at 20:32

Jeremy Thille

but by itself is not...so how is jquery able to use $ by itself? edit: nvm, i just tried var $=function(){} and it worked. – dave Feb 16 '15 at 20:34

score -2 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 16 '15 at 20:32

-2

Jquery is a wrapper which runs over javascript. In spite of using javascript large syntax, Jquery offer small syntaxs which is easy to use.

In Jquery $ sign return Jquery object.

answered Feb 16 '15 at 20:32

rahlrokks

5 Answers5