I've set up a test so I can begin using jQuery in a cakePHP environment but I'm having a problem before I've even started.

I have twitter bootstrap also but when I had this problem I turned everything off to make sure it wasn't that. It wasn't.

I'm testing this in Chrome & Waterfox.

When I tried to $('#test').html('Hello'); I didn't get anything. So I tried alerting something out using the following:

$(document).ready(function() {

    $('#test').click(function() {
        alert($('#test').text);
    });
});

and

<span id="test">test span</span>

Which gives me the result:

function (a){return f.access(this,function(a){return a===b?f.text(this):this.empty().append((this[0]&&this[0].ownerDocument||c).createTextNode(a))},null,a,arguments.length)}

Could someone please tell me what the hell that is please and why didn't I get 'test span'. Thank you :)

I've set up a test so I can begin using jQuery in a cakePHP environment but I'm having a problem before I've even started.

I have twitter bootstrap also but when I had this problem I turned everything off to make sure it wasn't that. It wasn't.

I'm testing this in Chrome & Waterfox.

When I tried to $('#test').html('Hello'); I didn't get anything. So I tried alerting something out using the following:

$(document).ready(function() {

    $('#test').click(function() {
        alert($('#test').text);
    });
});

and

<span id="test">test span</span>

Which gives me the result:

function (a){return f.access(this,function(a){return a===b?f.text(this):this.empty().append((this[0]&&this[0].ownerDocument||c).createTextNode(a))},null,a,arguments.length)}

Could someone please tell me what the hell that is please and why didn't I get 'test span'. Thank you :)

• javascript
• jquery
• jquery-selectors

• See api.jquery./text for details and usage examples. That site is a very good starting resource for your jQuery needs. In general when something goes weired, first RTM :) – Nope Commented Jun 21, 2012 at 13:52

8 Answers 8

'text' is a function, the code of which you are outputting

Just call it like any function

alert($('#test').text());

jQuery.text() is a function, not a property. Here is how you use it:

var a = $('#test').text(); // getter
$('#test').text(a);        // setter

Note: consider using jQuery.html() if you plan to inject fragments of HTML.

text is a function and should have parantheses on it

.text()

text() is a jQuery method; which means it needs to be text():

alert($('#test').text());

To assign some text to a block, you'd need to use:

$('#test').text("Hello");

Keep in mind, this doesn't work for form inputs or scripts. It only works on actual text elements. To do an input use:

$('#test').val("Hello");

You need to add the parentheses to invoke the 'text' function, e.g. 'text()'. Otherwise, as per standard JavaScript behaviour, the code content of the function itself is output instead.

This can be quite handy if you want a quick way to see how a function has been put together.

You are getting that because if the argument to the alert function is an object then it is converted to a string using .toString() method (Doc) of object, And in this case you are passing an function object to alert function.

Quote from MDN

window.alert(message);

message is a string of text you want to display in the alert dialog, or, alternatively, an object that is converted into a string and displayed.

You can check that by pasting the following code into your terminal

alert($.fn.text.toString())

You will get the same output as you are getting now.

Because when .toString() is called into an function object it's definition is returned. You need to call the function like any other by appending the () with the function name.

So like all others have already said you have to call it like alert($('#test').text());

.text() will give only the text. ex,

alert($('#test').text());