What is the difference between this and $(this) in jQuery?

Question

What is the difference between this and $(this) in jQuery? And when should I use which?

Answer 1

$('p').each(function () {
  //this.id;
  //$(this).attr('id');
})

If you consider the function above jQuery will loop through each paragraph element on the page and will return a reference to each paragraph element by passing the 'this' variable into the anonymous function. If the 'this' variable is wrapped in the jQuery function ($(this)) then we can access all the jQuery goodness in relation to the element e.g $(this).find('span'). The 'this' object on it's own is just a normal Javscript DOM Object.