How to pass jquery object to history.pushState

Question

var data = { url: $(this).attr('href'), selector: $(this) };
history.pushState(data, 'foo', $(this).attr('href'));

When I do this I get a error:

Component returned failure code: 0x8000ffff (NS_ERROR_UNEXPECTED) [nsIDOMHistory.pushState]

If I change selector to a string, then the error goes away... But I need the jQuery object, so I can trigger click on it on the "popstate" event :s

Answer 1

The data in the history state must be serializable. That is, it must be convertible to JSON. $(this) returns an array-like object with DOM nodes which cannot be converted to JSON. You should look for a different way to do what you're looking for.

Remember, the push state is just helpful information and is not meant to be canonical. If the user can't get the exact same content by copying and pasting the URL in the address bar you've got a problem.