JQuery Check If Target Is Link

I have a global function to capture clicks. $(document).click(function(e){ //do something if(clickedOnLink) //do something }); I want to do additional stuff when the targe

Solution 1:

You can try to see if the element you clicked on either is or is a child of an <a> tag.

$(document).click(function(e){
    if($(e.target).closest('a').length){
        alert('You clicked a link');
    }
    else{
        alert('You did not click a link');
    }
});

Solution 2:

I believe using is will actually have better performance than the answers suggesting closest:

$(e.target).is('a, a *');

This checks if the element itself is an a or if it is contained with an a.

This should be faster than closest because it will use matches on the element itself and not need to traverse up the DOM tree as closest will do.

Solution 3:

Try this

$(document).click(function(e){
  //do something
  if($(this).closest('a').length)
    //do something
});

Solution 4:

If the exact target is link, then you can use .is()

Example:

$(".element").on("click", function(e){
  if($(e.target).is("a")){
    //do your stuff
  }
});

EDIT:

If it is surrounded by other element that is inside an anchor tag, then you can use closest() and check whether it have anchor tag parent or not by using length

Example:

$(".element").on("click", function(e){
  if($(e.target).closest("a").length){
    //do your stuff
  }
});

Solution 5:

With jquery just get the tagName attribute $("a").prop("tagName");