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Event.currentTarget

Identifies the current target for the event, as the event traverses the DOM. It always refers to the element to which the event handler has been attached, as opposed to event.target which identifies the element on which the event occurred.

Example

event.currentTarget is interesting to use when attaching the same event handler to several elements.

function hide(e){
  e.currentTarget.style.visibility = "hidden";
  console.log(e.currentTarget);
  // When this function is used as an event handler: this === e.currentTarget
}

var ps = document.getElementsByTagName('p');

for(var i = 0; i < ps.length; i++){
  // console: print the clicked <p> element 
  ps[i].addEventListener('click', hide, false);
}
// console: print <body>
document.body.addEventListener('click', hide, false);

// click around and make paragraphs disappear

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
DOM The definition of 'Event.currentTarget' in that specification.	Living Standard
DOM4 The definition of 'Event.currentTarget' in that specification.	Obsolete
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Events Specification The definition of 'current event target' in that specification.	Obsolete
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 Events Specification The definition of 'Event.currentTarget' in that specification.	Obsolete	Initial definition

Browser compatibilityUpdate compatibility data on GitHub

	Desktop
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari
Basic support	Yes	Yes	Yes	9 9 6 — 9 On Internet Explorer 6 through 8, the event model is different. Event listeners are attached with the non-standard `EventTarget.attachEvent` method. In this model, there is no equivalent to `event.currentTarget` and `this` is the global object. One solution to emulate the `event.currentTarget` feature is to wrap your handler in a function calling the handler using `Function.prototype.call` with the element as a first argument. This way, `this` will be the expected value.	Yes	10

	Mobile
	Android webview	Chrome for Android	Edge Mobile	Firefox for Android	Opera for Android	iOS Safari	Samsung Internet
Basic support	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	10	?

Event.currentTarget

Example

Specifications

Browser compatibilityUpdate compatibility data on GitHub

See also