Silver's Simple Site - Weblog - Tags - jQuery

Working on a new project, with both jQuery and Underscore.js, I found myself with a problem. Using Underscore.js on jQuery objects felt somewhat dirty/messy:

    // With $ and _ both in scope...
    
    // Typical code:
    _($('.someclass'))
        .each(function(element) {
            element = $(element);
            // Run some jQuery on 'element'.
        });
    
    _.chain($('.someclass'))
        .filter(function(element) {
            element = $(element);
            // Test some jQuery on 'element'.
        })
        .each(function(element) {
            element = $(element);
            // Run some jQuery on 'element'.
        });

The two key problems I had were:

1. The initial "_($('..." and "_.chain($('..." bugged my sense of clean code.
2. I had to re-wrap every element in jQuery inside each filter() or each() or any other Underscore.js iterator function.

The solution I found is pretty simple and also in two parts:

1. Add a new mix-in to Underscore.js: the jQuery $() function.
2. Use the map() method from Underscore.js directly with jQuery's $() function. (This also meant an increased use of the chain() method.)

    // With $ and _ both in scope...
    
    // One-time set-up:
    _.mixin({$: $});
    
    // Typical code:
    _.chain('.someclass')
        .$()     // This uses jQuery to select the elements matching the selector.
        .map($)  // This uses Underscore.js to wrap every matched element in jQuery.
        .filter(function(element) {
            // Test some jQuery on 'element'.
        })
        .each(function(element) {
            // Run some jQuery on 'element'.
        });

Much cleaner!

Addendum: It was pointed out to me that you can avoid the chain() methods of Underscore.js by replacing that library with Lo-Dash, which has much the same API, but with better performance and more intuitive method chaining (i.e. more like jQuery). Thanks tom!