attr() (opens new window) gets/sets the HTML attribute using the DOM functions getAttribute() and setAttribute(). prop() (opens new window) works by setting the DOM property without changing the attribute. In many cases the two are interchangeable, but occasionally one is needed over the other.

To set a checkbox as checked:

$('#tosAccept').prop('checked', true); // using attr() won't work properly here

To remove a property you can use the removeProp() (opens new window) method. Similarly removeAttr() (opens new window) removes attributes.

When a single parameter is passed to the .attr() (opens new window) function it returns the value of passed attribute on the selected element.

Syntax:

$([selector]).attr([attribute name]);

Example:

HTML:

<a href="/home">Home</a>

jQuery:

$('a').attr('href');

Fetching data attributes:

jQuery offers .data() (opens new window) function in order to deal with data attributes. .data function returns the value of the data attribute on the selected element.

Syntax:

$([selector]).data([attribute name]);

Example:

Html:

<article data-column="3"></article>

jQuery:

$("article").data("column")

Note:

jQuery's data() method will give you access to data-* attributes, BUT, it clobbers the case of the attribute name. Reference (opens new window)

If you want to add an attribute to some element you can use the attr(attributeName, attributeValue) (opens new window) function. For example:

$('a').attr('title', 'Click me');

This example will add mouseover text "Click me" to all links on the page.

The same function is used to change attributes' values.

To remove an attribute from an element you can use the function .removeAttr(attributeName) (opens new window). For example:

$('#home').removeAttr('title');

This will remove title attribute from the element with ID home.

Remarks

The jQuery function .attr(), gets the value of an attribute for the first element in the set of matched elements or set one or more attributes for every matched element.

It is worth noting that when getting the value of an attribute, it only gets it from the first element that matches the selector (i.e. $("input").attr("type"); would only get the type of the first input, if there are more than one)

However, when setting an attribute, it will apply it to all matching elements.