jquery/[removed] function(e){… what is e? why is it needed? what does it actually do/accomplish?

Question

$(\'#myTable\').click(function(e) {
    var clicked = $(e.target);
    clicked.css(\'background\', \'red\');
});

Can someone explain this to me, an

Answer 1

One benefit to having e (the object that raised the event) allows you to prevent the propagation of default behaviors for certain elements. For example:

Click For Info

renders a link that the user can click. If a user has JavaScript disabled (why? I dunno), you want the user to navigate to someOtherPage.htm when they click the link. But if they have JavaScript enabled, then you want to display a modal dialog and not navigate away from the page. You would handle this by preventing the default behavior of the anchor/link and displaying the modal as such:

$("#navLink").click(function(e) {
  e.preventDefault();  //this prevents the user from navigating to the someOtherPage.htm
  $("#hiddenDiv").dialog({
    //options
  });  //show the dialog
});

So having that parameter available allows you to, among other things described in other answers, prevent the default behavior of the selected element.

Hope this helps!