The $ dollar sign

Question

I have something simple like this:

$(selector).append("somestuff");

But since I\'m going to reuse the selector I cache it with:

Answer 1

RichieHindle is correct. To expand:

Javascript variables allow the '$' character. So for example, you could have the following:

var $i = 1;
var i = 1;

Both i and $i have the same value, and both are perfectly legitimate variable names.

jQuery assigns itself (the jQuery object) to '$' because traditionally, that's what Javascript frameworks have done for selectors. There's no inherent meaning to '$' beyond what jQuery gives it.