Why "this" argument in jQuery returns href with anchors
javascript, jquery
Solution
`""+this` is equivalent to `this.toString()`. On an `a` element it returns the `href` (yes, that's weird, and probably for compatibility with something that was useful a long time ago, but that's what it does on all browsers).
In the second case, you're not calling `toString` but the browser dependent console formatting method. Different choices were made : on Chrome for example it usually returns the outer html (as a browsable tree if it's big).
Problem
I have this for exemple: ``` <div id="example"> <a href="http://www.google.com/#1">Hello</a> <a href="http://www.google.com/#4">Hello</a> </div> ``` And this two line of jQuery: ``` jQuery("a").filter(function() { console.log(""+this+"") }); ``` Returns: ``` http://www.google.com/#1 http://www.google.com/#4 ``` But ``` jQuery("a").filter(function() { console.log(this); }); ``` Returns ``` <a href="http://www.google.com/#1">Hello</a> <a href="http://www.google.com/#4">Hello</a> ``` Why the line 2, return the HREF attribute of the anchor IF 'this' argument add a "string"? The jQuery docs says if filter have an function argument, the `"this" is the current DOM element`