The currentTarget read-only property of the Event interface identifies the current target for the event, as the event traverses the DOM. It always refers to the element to which the event handler has been attached, as opposed to Event.target, which identifies the element on which the event occurred and which may be its descendant.
Event.currentTarget
Value
An EventTarget representing the object to which the current event handler is attached.
Examples
Event.currentTarget is interesting to use when attaching the same event handler to several elements.
function hide(e){ e.currentTarget.style.visibility = 'hidden'; console.log(e.currentTarget); // When this function is used as an event handler: this === e.currentTarget } var ps = document.getElementsByTagName('p'); for(var i = 0; i < ps.length; i++){ // console: print the clicked <p> element ps[i].addEventListener('click', hide, false); } // console: print <body> document.body.addEventListener('click', hide, false); // Click around and make paragraphs disappear
Note: The value of event.currentTarget is only available while the event is being handled. If you console.log() the event object, storing it in a variable, and then look for the currentTarget key in the console, its value will be null.
Instead, you should either use console.log(event.currentTarget) to be able to view it in the console or use the debugger statement, which will pause the execution of your code thus showing you the value of event.currentTarget.
Specifications
| Specification |
|---|
| DOM Standard # ref-for-dom-event-currenttarget② |
Browser compatibility
| Desktop | Mobile | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chrome | Edge | Firefox | Internet Explorer | Opera | Safari | WebView Android | Chrome Android | Firefox for Android | Opera Android | Safari on IOS | Samsung Internet | |
currentTarget |
1
|
12
|
1
|
9
6-9
On Internet Explorer 6 through 8, the event model is different. Event listeners are attached with the non-standard
EventTarget.attachEvent method. In this model, there is no equivalent to
event.currentTarget and
this is the global object. One solution to emulate the
event.currentTarget feature is to wrap your handler in a function calling the handler using
Function.prototype.call with the element as a first argument. This way,
this will be the expected value.
|
7
|
1
|
1
|
18
|
4
|
10.1
|
1
|
1.0
|
See also
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Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License v2.5 or later.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Event/currentTarget
