Using PushStack() In jQuery Plugins To Create New Collections
Posted October 29, 2009 at 9:58 AM by Ben Nadel
Most of the time, when creating a plugin in jQuery, I'll leverage built-in functions like filter() and each() to select from or alter the current collection. Plugins that are built in this fashion are auto-wired to have the appropriate stack connections; that is, since jQuery performs non-destructive collection augmentation, when you use a plugin that is built on top of these methods, you can then use the end() method to move back up the collection stack to the previous collection. Occassionally, however, I have the need to create a plugin that builds an entirely new collection that is not an augmented version of the current collection; as such, there is no auto-wiring of the collection chain.
In cases like that, you need to manually create the collection relationship. jQuery provides the pushStack() method for such scenarios. When you call pushStack() off of the current collection, it will take the given collection and associate it to the current collection such that calling the end() method (after the plugin exits) will return the programmer to the current collection.
Let's take a look at a small example:
- <!DOCTYPE HTML>
- <html>
- <head>
- <title>Using PushStack In jQuery Plugins</title>
- <script type="text/javascript" src="jquery-1.3.2.js"></script>
- <script type="text/javascript">
-
- // This plugin gets the PREV and NEXT siblings of the
- // elements in the current collection and pushes it
- // onto the stack so that end() will return to original
- // collection.
-
- jQuery.fn.near = function(){
- // Get a new collection of elements consisting of the
- // merging of the PREV and NEXT elements.
- var newCollection = this.prev().add( this.next() );
-
- // When we return this new collection, push it onto
- // the stack. This will appropriate set the prevObject
- // proprety of the new collection.
- return(
- this.pushStack(
- newCollection,
- "near",
- ""
- )
- );
- };
-
-
- // --------------------------------------------------- //
- // --------------------------------------------------- //
-
-
- // When the DOM is ready, initialize.
- jQuery(function( $ ){
-
- $( "li.start" )
- .near()
- .css( "font-style", "italic" )
- .end()
- .css( "font-weight", "bold" )
- ;
-
- });
-
- </script>
- </head>
- <body>
-
- <h1>
- Using PushStack In jQuery Plugins
- </h1>
-
- <ol>
- <li>
- First list item.
- </li>
- <li class="start">
- Second list item.
- </li>
- <li>
- Third list item.
- </li>
- </ol>
-
- </body>
- </html>
Here, we are creating a new jQuery plugin, near(), that returns the aggregation of the prev() and next() elements. When we run the above code, we get the following output:
First list item.
Second list item.
Third list item.
You'll notice that we started with the middle LI and then called the near() plugin method. This returned the first and third list items, which we italicized. We then called end(), moving back to the original collection (li.start), which we then made bold.
Of the arguments passed to the pushStack() method, only the first, which is the new collection, is critical. The second and third arguments which are the Name of the plugin and the Selector that it uses respectively, seem to be used only to set the internal "selector" property.
This is the first time that I have used the pushStack() method, so forgive me if I have gotten something wrong or provided some misinformation. However, based on my demo above, this seems to work quite nicely.
Reader Comments
Nice write-up Ben! Before I knew about pushStack() I used to just return a new jQuery collection, i.e.
jQuery.fn.plugin = function(){ return $(something); }
It worked in most cases but obviously didn't retain the original jQuery instance. This can be misleading - the jQuery instance really shouldn't change half way through a chain.
pushStack() is the ideal way to do this because it doesn't remove or create a new object, it simply modifies the current one.
I hope others will take this into account when creating plugins that change the collection.
@James,
I think the real problem is that there's like ZERO documentation on this method. In fact, if you even go to the plugin authoring section of the jQuery website, they don't even mention this. I am not sure why exactly - it seems like a really key concept.
Your exemple is doesn't work:
(with FireBug)
styntax error
var newCollection = this.prev().add( this.next() );
La doc est complètement vide sur la méthode.
soory for my message :
your exemple work very well :)
Thank you.
@Ben, re: your Oct 30, 2009 at 7:54 AM post:
The sad thing is, over 15 months later, what you said is STILL true. There's still next to nothing on how to use pushStack on api.jquery.com. This article remains the best documentation on it I've been able to find.
@WebManWalking,
The jQuery documentation in general is really good - part of what makes jQuery such a popular library; I am surprised that this is still a hole in the information. Perhaps they are pushing things like the Widget Factory these days and don't want to encourage people to seek other means of plugin development?
@Ben,
I'm about to do something majorly cool with pushStack. Something that's never been done before and allows you to do something that can't be done any other way. When it's done, I'll post an explanation of it here on the same day as plugins.jquery.com.
I'd say what it is, but I don't want to get into a race condition with your readers. :-)
@WebManWalking,
Ooooh, sounds juicy - looking forward to it.
Actually, my plug-in that uses pushStack() is working. But I need to write another plug-in that uses the first one before I release the set.
By the way. I found some documentation of pushStack() in Chaffer/Swedberg' Learning jQuery, June 2007 version, p. 316. This article is much more in-depth, however.
Chaffer/Swedberg's
@Ben,
Well, I just now released my jQuery plug-ins, 2 of which use .pushStack(). They're part of what I'm calling "The Pseudo-Tables Package".
Release 1.0 page:
http://plugins.jquery.com/content/pseudotablespackage-10
Documentation:
http://www.webmanwalking.org/projects/jquery/jquery.alignPseudoTables/
The 2 plug-ins that use .pushStack() are .findClosest() and .findNestedFirst().
I wrote .findNestedFirst() first. It returns the same elements as .find(), but in most-nested to least-nested order. This allows aligning inner pseudo-tables before the outer ones that contain them. That way, the inner ones will have already been resized, so the alignment of the outer ones will be accurate.
You can think of .findClosest() as being like .closest(), but in the downward direction. So from an outer table, I want JUST the rows it directly contains, JUST the ones associated with the outer table. (I don't want a nested table's rows.) That's the problem with "selector selector" (descendant). There's no way to say "and go no further down the DOM tree".
(Note: I couldn't use "selector > selector" (child) for that purpose, because there could be elements in-between. For example, in a pseudo-table that's being used to align a form, I typically code fieldset between table and rows. So "selector > selector" won't work. I needed a .findClosest() plug-in.)
If you're into reading someone else's code, I think you'll like reading .findNestedFirst(). It recursively builds an ordered tree of found elements to represent the nesting hierarchy. It maintains DOM order in the tree by using arrays of arrays. It also uses recursion to flatten the tree into the single array it returns to .pushStack().
Can you tell I was a computer sciences major? Only computer sciences majors think of practical uses for recursion. :-)
thanks for this plugin...will be using it on my blog...
@Ben how's it going brother?!?
Just came across this and sad to admit I just discovered .pushStack() 2 weeks ago. :/
Was sad to see the lack of real documentation, but once again, you're blog has come to my rescue!
Hope all is well!
