Is there a good way to attach JavaScript objects to HTML elements?

Question

I want to associate a JavaScript object with an HTML element. Is there a simple way to do this?

I noticed HTML DOM defines a setAttribute method and it looks like th

Answer 1

Have you looked at the jQuery data() method? You can assign complex objects to the element if you want or you can leverage that method to hold a reference to an object (or some other data) at the very least.

Answer 2

JavaScript objects can have arbitrary properties assigned to them, there's nothing special you have to do to allow it. This includes DOM elements; although this behaviour is not part of the DOM standard, it has been the case going back to the very first versions of JavaScript and is totally reliable.

var div= document.getElementById('nav');
div.potato= ['lemons', 3];