Why won't jQuery accept this string?

Question

When I run this function:

onUnCheck: function(el) {
var thenames = "icon-"+el.find("label:first").text().replace(/ /g,'').toLowerCase();        
alert(thenames);            
$("'."+thenames+"'").hide("fast");
}

I generate a string. I can see in the alert() that it is indeed the correct string. Example:

icon-jira

But when I pass the string in as a jQuery selector it does not work.

I know the function's logic is sound because pasting in the result of my alert() makes it work.

Why won't jQuery accept my string?

Gazler · Accepted Answer · 2010-09-21 17:25:16Z

5

$('.'+thenames).hide("fast");

This will look for ".icon-jira." You were looking for "'.icon-jira'" which adds the quotes to the selector.

answered Sep 21, 2010 at 17:25

Gazler

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Comments

Xavi · Accepted Answer · 2010-09-21 17:48:07Z

4

It looks like you have an extra set of single quotes (''). Try this:

onUnCheck: function(el) {
  var thenames = "icon-"+el.find("label:first").text().replace(/\s/g,'').toLowerCase();        
  alert(thenames);            
  $("."+thenames).hide("fast");
}

Also, consider using /\s/g instead of / /g -- /\s/g is a little less error prone and a bit more readable.

edited Sep 21, 2010 at 17:48

answered Sep 21, 2010 at 17:26

Xavi

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2 Comments

Joel Crawford-Smith Over a year ago

Thanks for that extra tip. If I may ask one more silly question: What if I wanted to strip out: periods, commas, (), /,\, and _ how would I add that to this replace?

Xavi Over a year ago

To get remove of those character specifically you can use .replace(/[.,()/\\_]/g, ""). Note that inside a regex character set only ^, -, ], and ` \ ` have to be escaped. Another option is get remove characters that are not alphanumeric. In that case you can use .replace(/[^\a-zA-Z0-9]/g, ""), though keep in mind that this regex also removes accented characters.

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