What does this JQuery code mean and when will it get called?

Question

I am new to JQuery and I see a piece of code in a web page:

$(function() {
     //do something...
});

I don't understand the syntax here. Does it define a function? When will it get called? Can I re-use it?

Thanks

Answer 1

That is the short version of jQuerys DOM ready handler. The code inside the function will be called on page load, when the DOMReady event has fired.

It is equivalent to the following which is a little more verbose, but clearer:

$(document).ready(function() {
    // code here
});