Are event listeners identical to html events?

Question

Is onclick in HTML identical to .click() in jQuery?

Obviously they are identical from a usability standpoint, but I am curious how the browser handles them.

Answer 1

jQuery attaches events using JavaScript behind the scenes.

An important difference is that jQuery allows multiple events to be bound using click(), where as you can only attach one handler using onclick. This is because jQuery uses either addEventListener or attachEvent behind the scenes, as opposed to binding to .onclick directly.

Furthermore, attaching handlers via JavaScript (using jQuery or not) promotes unobtrusive JavaScript (i.e. not mixing JavaScript and HTML), which is a good thing.