jquery: extract value from $(this) [duplicate]

Question

This question already has answers here:

Closed 12 years ago.

Possible Duplicate:
Javascript / Jquery - Get number from string

Using

var id = $(this).attr("class");

I get all the classes of the clicked link, var id returns 4 classes:

button_red 501 ajax-call class2

How do I extract the class '501' and put it in an var like var id_numeric = 501 ?

Thanks for your advice

• raina77ow: Can't help wondering why do you need to use classes to store what looks like semantic data.
• Maarten Hartman: usually I would store it in the ID, in this case the ID is already taken by something else (drupal ajax link). I understand you're wondering ;)
• zzzzBov: This is an XY problem.

Answer 1

Assuming you are using an HTML5 doctype, you could probably use a data- attribute rather than a CSS class. For example:

data-id="501"

Then either

var id = $(this).attr("data-id");

or

var id = $(this).data("id"); //[1]

would work.

Reference:

[1] http://tutorialzine.com/2010/11/jquery-data-method/

• zzzzBov: This is the right tool for the job.
• wirey00: data attributes have been around for awhile actually caniuse.com/dataset
• zzzzBov: @wirey, data attributes have been supported for a while, but they weren't standardized until the HTML5 spec, which would require the HTML5 doctype.
• Maarten Hartman: Thanks to you too Tieson, I will remember this for the future. I'm using drupal 7 ajax links, therefore I can't use it yet (done some googling)

Answer 2

var numericClassIdMatches = $(this).attr('class').match(/\b\d+\b/);

In the above case, 501 would be numericClassIdMatches[0]

• Maarten Hartman: thanks a lot, it worked! will accept your answer as soon as I can
• Maarten Hartman: btw, if you want, can you exlain the (/\b\d+\b/) part? I don't see any logic in it
• Tieson T.: @MaartenHartman regular-expressions.info/reference.html
• Explosion Pills: @Axel the class name restriction you are referencing does not exist in the current HTML spec
• Explosion Pills: @MaartenHartman because look at how relatively complex it was to get the ID data you were looking for! $(this).attr('class').match(/\b\d+\b/)[0]; vs. $(this).data('id'). Also, classes may be manipulated by other means ($(this).removeClass() will remove the ID class as well as the styling classes)