JS: What's the Value of “this” in Event Handler?

By Xah Lee. Date: . Last updated: .

for example:

const myEle = document.getElementById("xyz");
myEle.addEventListener ("click", function () { this.style.color = "red"; }, false)

the value of this in a event handler is the element that fired the event.

you shouldn't use it. A better way is to use the event target. Every event handler is passed a event object. The element that fired the event is the value of the “target” property of the event object.

For example, do this:

const myEle = document.getElementById("xyz");
myEle.addEventListener ("click", ((evt) => { evt.target.style.color = "red";}) , false)

See also: this Binding