How can I assign a property to a jQuery object?

arrays, jquery, jquery-1.3, object

Solution

jQuery exposes the concept of a property-bag with the `data` method.

// set some arbitrary data
$('#selector').data('example-property', exampleValue);

// get the value later
var theValue = $('#selector').data('example-property')

This avoids DOM manipulations which can be expensive in terms of performance.

Problem

It is in my understanding that referencing any DOM element in jQuery via the dollar sign (like this: `$("#mydiv")`), returns an object. I am looking to add an additional property to an object as such: ``` $("#mydiv").myprop = "some value"; ``` but this does not seem to work. I am trying to store a value in this object so I can reference it later. The following code, though, gives me an `undefined` value even immediately after I set the property. ``` $("#mydiv").myprop = "some value"; alert($("#mydiv").myprop); ``` this code does not work either: ``` $("#mydiv")["myprop"] = "some value"; alert($("#mydiv").myprop); ``` Is there a way to achieve this? Or do I need to store all my properties as attributes on the DOM object via `$("#mydiv").attr("myprop", "some value")` (this is much less desirable). Thanks!

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