Get element an observable is bound to with Knockout?

Question

This isn\'t an ideal situation, but due to another knockout binding I am using I am in a situation where I am needing to get the element an observable is bound to, if it is

Answer 1

I have done something similar to what you mentioned above. My data-bind tag includes a custom binding:

data-bind="... myvalidationbinding: myobservable"

Then in my binding handler I extend the observable

ko.bindingHandlers.myvalidationbinding = {
  init: function (element, valueAccessor, allBindingsAccessor, viewModel) { 
    valueAccessor().extend({element: element });
  }
};

And finally my extension is

ko.extenders.element = function (target, element) {
  target.DOMElement = element;
}

Now I can subscribe to isValid() given by knockout.validation and if not valid, go get the element the observable is bound to and then manipulate it with jQuery.

Answer 2

This won't be very fast, so I would definitely cache the results, but something using jQuery's attribute selectors:

$('[data-bind*="Property"]')

*= is the attribute contains selector: http://api.jquery.com/attribute-contains-selector/

Obviously this won't catch anything that subscribed manually using the .subscribe method, but I'm not sure how you would extract element's from the functions anyway.

Disclaimer: while this solution will probably work, this sounds like a horrible idea to me, I would instead write a custom binding (as mentioned in the comments) or find some other solution.