How to tell if a mouse is hovering over an element

Question

Is there a function I can call to know if a certain element is currently being hovered over, like this?

/* Returns true or false */
hoveringOver("a#mylink");

Answer 1

You can use jQuery's hover method to keep track:

$(...).hover(
    function() { $.data(this, 'hover', true); },
    function() { $.data(this, 'hover', false); }
).data('hover', false);

if ($(something).data('hover'))
    //Hovered!

Answer 2

Yes, in classic JS:

document.getElementById("mylink").onmouseover = function() { alert("Hover!"); }
document.getElementById("mylink").onmouseout  = function() { alert("Out!"); }

in jQuery:

$('#mylink').mouseover(function() {
  alert("Hover!");
});