How can I refresh a stored and snapshotted jquery selector variable

Question

I ran yesterday in a problem with a jquery-selector I assigned to a variable and it's driving me mad.

Here is a jsfiddle with testcase:

• assign the .elem to my obj var
• log both lengths to the console. Result => 4
• Remove #3 from the DOM
• log obj to the console => the removed #3 is still there and the length is still 4. I figured out that jquery query is snapshotted? to the variable and can't?won't? be updated
• log .elem to the console.. yep Result => 3 and the #3 is gone
• Now I update .elem with a new width of 300
• logging obj & obj.width gives me 300.. So the snapshot has been updated ? What's interesting is that 3 of the 4 divs have the new width, but the removed #3 doesn't...

Another test: Adding a li element to the domtree and logging obj and .elem. .elem does have the new li and obj doesn't, because it's still the old snapshot

http://jsfiddle.net/CBDUK/1/

Is there no way to update this obj with the new content? I don't want to make a new obj, because in my application there is a lot information saved in that object, I don't want to destroy...

Answer 1

Yeah, it's a snapshot. Furthermore, removing an element from the page DOM tree isn't magically going to vanish all references to the element.

You can refresh it like so:

var a = $(".elem");

a = $(a.selector);

Mini-plugin:

$.fn.refresh = function() {
    return $(this.selector);
};

var a = $(".elem");

a = a.refresh();

This simple solution doesn't work with complex traversals though. You are going to have to make a parser for the .selector property to refresh the snapshot for those.

The format is like:

$("body").find("div").next(".sibling").prevAll().siblings().selector
//"body div.next(.sibling).prevAll().siblings()"

In-place mini-plugin:

$.fn.refresh = function() {
    var elems = $(this.selector);
    this.splice(0, this.length);
    this.push.apply( this, elems );
    return this;
};

var a = $(".elem");
a.refresh() //No assignment necessary