Learning jQuery

Using method chaining in jQuery helps to ensure that your code stays as lightweight as possible. Method chaining allows you to apply many methods to one single selector, thus limiting the amount of times you have to re-write the same selector over and over again. To see how it works, here’s some jQuery code that doesn’t use method chaining:

$(“.main”).css(“color”, “red”);
$(“.main”).addClass(“selected”);
$(“.main”).slideDown();

The example above uses three different $(“.main”) selectors, one for each method. Not only is this annoying and time consuming to write, but using the same selector over and over again can slow down your code. This is where method chaining comes in. The same example above using a method chaining technique would look like this:

$(“.main”).css(“color”, “red”).addClass(“selected”).slideDown();

As you can see from the example above, method chaining will make your code look cleaner and more concise. It’s a technique you should definitely employ if you’re applying more than one method to a single selector.