jQuery: Find clicked element when binding to a form submission event?

Question

I think this should be simple. Say I\'ve got the following jQuery:

$someForm.live(\'submit\', function(event) {
// do something
});

If there

Answer 1

You can use the target property of the event object to get the element that initiated the event:

$(":submit").click(function(event) {
    var initiatingElement = event.target;
    // Do something with `initiatingElement`...
});

EDIT: Note that, for that to work, you will have to handle the click events of your submit buttons instead of the submit event of your form.

Answer 2

Normally you can use event.target for the element itself...and in this case, since it's a native DOM property, just use .name as well:

$someForm.live('submit', function(event) {
  var name = event.target.name;
});

However, since submit doesn't originate from the button, only a click does, you want something more like this:

$("form :submit").live('click', function(event) {
  var name = this.name;
});

Use this here, because as @patrick points out, a <button> can have children as well, and the target may be a child in those cases.