Implementing jQuery's "live" binder with native Javascript

Question

I am trying to figure out how to bind an event to dynamically created elements. I need the event to persist on the element even after it is destroyed and regenerated.

Obviously with jQuery's live function its easy, but what would they look like implemented with native Javascript?

Answer 1

Here's a simple example:

function live(eventType, elementId, cb) {
    document.addEventListener(eventType, function (event) {
        if (event.target.id === elementId) {
            cb.call(event.target, event);
        }
    });
}

live("click", "test", function (event) {
    alert(this.id);
});

The basic idea is that you want to attach an event handler to the document and let the event bubble up the DOM. Then, check the event.target property to see if it matches the desired criteria (in this case, just that the id of the element).

Edit:

@shabunc discovered a pretty big problem with my solution-- events on child elements won't be detected correctly. One way to fix this is to look at ancestor elements to see if any have the specified id:

function live (eventType, elementId, cb) {
    document.addEventListener(eventType, function (event) {
        var el = event.target
            , found;

        while (el && !(found = el.id === elementId)) {
            el = el.parentElement;
        }

        if (found) {
            cb.call(el, event);
        }
    });
}