What does 'a[href^="/"]' mean?

Question

In the code below, is a[href^="/"] a regular expression?

Why does it have the ^ symbol and what does it do?

Which click events will it/won't it respond to?

$(document).on('click', 'a[href^="/"]', function(e) { 
     e.preventDefault(); 
     var href = $(e.currentTarget).attr('href'); 
     console.log('click ' + href); 
     Backbone.history.navigate(href, { trigger: true }); 
}); 

(code source)

Answer 1

Q. In the code below, is a[href^="/"] a regular expression?

R. No, it's not a regular expression. It's a (CSS based) jQuery selector.

Q. Why does it have the ^ symbol and what does it do?

It has this symbol because it means startsWith.

Q. Which click events will it/won't it respond to?

R. It will respond to any a tag that have an href attribute that starts with /.

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Note: that Backbone code is probably using that selector to get all the internal links of the website and change their behavior to do client navigation, while the external links will start with http/https.

Answer 2

The ^ symbol indicates that the event will execute any link that begins with /