jquery - Click event doesn't work on dynamically generated elements

I was trying to generate a new tag with class name test in the

by clicking the button. I also defined a click event associated with test. But the event doesn't work.

Can anyone help?

Answer

The click() binding you're using is called a "direct" binding which will only attach the handler to elements that already exist. It won't get bound to elements created in the future. To do that, you'll have to create a "delegated" binding by using on().

Delegated events have the advantage that they can process events from descendant elements that are added to the document at a later time.

^Source

Here's what you're looking for:

var counter = 0;

$("button").click(function() {

    $("h2").append("
click me " + (++counter) + "
")
});

// With on():

$("h2").on("click", "p.test", function(){
    alert($(this).text());
});

The above works for those using jQuery version 1.7+. If you're using an older version, refer to the previous answer below.

---

Previous Answer:

Try using live():

$("button").click(function(){
    $("h2").html("
click me
")
});   


$(".test").live('click', function(){
    alert('you clicked me!');

});

Worked for me. Tried it with jsFiddle.

Or there's a new-fangled way of doing it with delegate():

$("h2").delegate("p", "click", function(){
    alert('you clicked me again!');
});

An updated jsFiddle.