jquery get target value for href

Question

Using jquery how do I find out the target value of a href link. e.g. if my link was

<a href="someurl.com" id="the_link" target="_blank">link</a>

the target would be _blank

Town · Accepted Answer · 2011-06-07T10:23:42.410

9

Using attr()

$('#the_link').attr('target');

Example on jsfiddle.

edited Jun 07 '11 at 10:23

answered Jun 07 '11 at 10:17

Town

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score 5 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:28

5

I'll be different and teach you part-vanilla js by acting directly on the elements properties:

$('#the_link')[0].target;

If you're using jQuery >=1.6 you should be using .prop than .attr really

$('#the_link').prop('target');

.prop() vs .attr()

edited May 23 '17 at 10:28

Community

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answered Jun 07 '11 at 10:20

Gary Green

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`$('#the_link')` is defintely not vanilla JavaScript. You want `document.getElementById('the_link').target`. – Town Jun 07 '11 at 10:26

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited Apr 07 '12 at 12:02

1

Use attr()

alert($('#the_link').attr('target'));

edited Apr 07 '12 at 12:02

Alex Lockwood

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answered Jun 07 '11 at 10:17

Arda

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score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 07 '11 at 10:18

1

Simply

$('#the_link').attr('target');

answered Jun 07 '11 at 10:18

DanielB

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score 0 · Answer 5 · answered May 04 '18 at 23:33

While the accepted answer is correct for the specific case shown in the OP's example, in a real-world scenario, it's entirely possible that a link's effective target won't be defined as an attribute of its anchor element.

For example, consider this basic HTML page:

<!doctype html>
<html lang=en>
  <head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <title>Example</title>
    <base target="_blank">
  </head>
  <body>
    <a href="someurl.com" id="the_link">link</a>
  </body>
</html>

Due to the <base target="_blank"> element in the <head>, the link's target is _blank, but this:

$('#the_link').attr('target');

will return undefined because the link has no target attribute.

A more effective approach might be something like:

function getTarget($link) {
  var linkTarget = $link.attr('target'),
      baseTarget = $('base').attr('target');
  if (typeof linkTarget !== 'undefined') {
    return linkTarget;
  } else if (typeof baseTarget !== 'undefined') {
    return baseTarget;
  }
}       

console.log(getTarget($('#the_link'));

That will return the link's target if defined, otherwise the base target if defined, otherwise undefined.

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Jun 07 '11 at 10:18

0

$('a').attr('target')

Should do it

(jQuery .attr Documentation)

answered Jun 07 '11 at 10:18

BenWells

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This will collect all `'a'` elements. Better select by ID – Alex R. Jun 07 '11 at 10:22

jquery get target value for href

6 Answers6