Web/API/Event/currentTarget

The currentTarget read-only property of the Event interface 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 and which may be its descendant.

Syntax

var currentEventTarget = event.currentTarget;

Value

EventTarget

Examples

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

Note: The value of event.currentTarget is only available while the event is being handled. If you console.log() the event object, storing it in a variable, and then look for the currentTarget key in the console, its value will be null. Instead, you can either directly console.log(event.currentTarget) to be able to view it in the console or use the debugger statement, which will pause the execution of your code thus showing you the value of event.currentTarget.

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
DOMThe definition of 'Event.currentTarget' in that specification.	Living Standard
DOM4The definition of 'Event.currentTarget' in that specification.	Obsolete
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 3 Events SpecificationThe definition of 'current event target' in that specification.	Obsolete
Document Object Model (DOM) Level 2 Events SpecificationThe definition of 'Event.currentTarget' in that specification.	Obsolete	Initial definition

Browser compatibility

Update compatibility data on GitHub

	Desktop						Mobile
	Chrome	Edge	Firefox	Internet Explorer	Opera	Safari	Android webview	Chrome for Android	Firefox for Android	Opera for Android	Safari on iOS	Samsung Internet
`currentTarget`	Chrome Full support 1	Edge Full support 12	Firefox Full support 1	IE Full support 9 Full support 9 No support 6 — 9 Notes' Notes' 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.	Opera Full support 7	Safari Full support 10	WebView Android Full support 1	Chrome Android Full support 18	Firefox Android Full support 4	Opera Android Full support 10.1	Safari iOS Full support 10	Samsung Internet Android Full support 1.0

Legend

Full support: Full support
See implementation notes.': See implementation notes.