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JavaScript jQuery Basics Working with jQuery Collections The .each() method

Posted by Zimri Leijen
Zimri Leijen
11,835 Points

prepending a HTML string using JQuerys prepend method prepends a string instead.

In one of the challenges I am trying to prepend a checkbox to each list item in a list, however, using the following code, it prepends a string instead.

index.html 
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <title>Document</title>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css">
</head>
<body>
    <h2>My Favorite Things</h2>

    <ul class="favorite-things">
        <li>Kittens</li>
        <li>Rainbows</li>
        <li>Unicorns</li>
        <li>Sprinkles</li>
    </ul>

    <script
    src="jquery-3.2.1.min.js"></script>
    <script src="app.js"></script>
</body>
</html>
app.js 
$('.favorite-things li').each(function() {
  this.prepend('<input type="checkbox"/>');
});

1 Answer

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,236 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,236 Points

Inside "each", a "this" represents an HTML Element and not a jQuery object. Both HTML Elements and jQuery objects have a "prepend" method, but they work differently.

If you want the jQuery method, you need to convert "this" to a jQuery object:

  $(this).prepend('<input type="checkbox"/>');
Zimri Leijen
Zimri Leijen
11,835 Points

Thank you, that makes sense.