What does the "$" sign mean in jQuery or JavaScript? [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
What is the meaning of “$” sign in JavaScript

Now this must seem to be an easy and stupid question to ask but I must know why we use the dollar ($) symbol in jQuery and JavaScript. I always put a dollar in my scripts but I actuary don't know why.

For an example:

$('#Text').click(function () {   $('#Text').css('color', 'red') }); 

This just changes the text colour when you click it, but it demonstrates my point.

Answer 1

In JavaScript it has no special significance (no more than a or Q anyway). It is just an uninformative variable name.

In jQuery the variable is assigned a copy of the jQuery function. This function is heavily overloaded and means half a dozen different things depending on what arguments it is passed. In this particular example you are passing it a string that contains a selector, so the function means "Create a jQuery object containing the element with the id Text".

Answer 2

The $ is just a function. It is actually an alias for the function called jQuery, so your code can be written like this with the exact same results:

jQuery('#Text').click(function () {   jQuery('#Text').css('color', 'red'); });