Simulating a click in jQuery/JavaScript on a link

Question

I want to simulate a click on any link on a page using JavaScript. If that link has some function binded to its \'onclick\' event (by any other JS I don\'t have any control

Answer 1

You can use the the click function to trigger the click event on the selected element.

Example:

$( 'selector for your link' ).click ();

You can learn about various selectors in jQuery's documentation.

EDIT: like the commenters below have said; this only works on events attached with jQuery, inline or in the style of "element.onclick". It does not work with addEventListener, and it will not follow the link if no event handlers are defined. You could solve this with something like this:

var linkEl = $( 'link selector' );
if ( linkEl.attr ( 'onclick' ) === undefined ) {
    document.location = linkEl.attr ( 'href' );
} else {
    linkEl.click ();
}

Don't know about addEventListener though.

Answer 2

All this might not help say when you use rails remote form button to simulate click to. I tried to port nice event simulation from prototype here: my snippets. Just did it and it works for me.

Answer 3

At first see this question to see how you can find if a link has a jQuery handler assigned to it.

Next use:

$("a").attr("onclick")

to see if there is a javascript event assigned to it.

If any of the above is true, then call the click method. If not, get the link:

$("a").attr("href")

and follow it.

I am afraid I don't know what to do if addEventListener is used to add an event handler. If you are in charge of the full page source, use only jQuery event handlers.

Answer 4

Just

$("#your_item").trigger("click");

using .trigger() you can simulate many type of events, just passing it as the parameter.

Answer 5

Why not just the good ol' javascript?

$('#element')[0].click()

Answer 6

Try this

function submitRequest(buttonId) {
    if (document.getElementById(buttonId) == null
            || document.getElementById(buttonId) == undefined) {
        return;
    }
    if (document.getElementById(buttonId).dispatchEvent) {
        var e = document.createEvent("MouseEvents");
        e.initEvent("click", true, true);
        document.getElementById(buttonId).dispatchEvent(e);
    } else {
        document.getElementById(buttonId).click();
    }
}

and you can use it like

submitRequest("target-element-id");