jQuery custom events on non-DOM objects

Question

I read some code recently that does something like this:

bob = {'name': 'Bob Smith', 'rank': 7};
$(bob).bind("nameChanged", function () { /* ... */});
// ...
$(bob).trigger("nameChanged");

This appears to work.

But I can't find anything in the jQuery documentation or source about calling the jQuery constructor with an object that is neither a selector nor a DOM node. So my question is, is this a supported use, or is it essentially working by accident?

If you wanted to use an event-driven model for your Model or View objects in JavaScript, how would you do it?

Answer 1

What happens is that it just wraps that object in a jQuery wrapper. It then applies a callback to a new property on that object and then triggers it.

It's an odd way of doing things, but perfectly acceptable.