difference between $ and $() in jQuery

Question

Could someone take the effort to explain me the difference between $ and $() in jquery?

I know $() is shorthand form of $jQuery() which takes any DOM element and turns it into a jQuery object.

But what I am not sure of is what is $ and how different is it from $(). Kindly enlighten me.

Thanks heaps, Chaitanya

Answer 1

$ is a function that can be called - $().

The behaviour of $() varies immensely depending on the parameters supplied, although all examples below will return a jQuery object. It can:

1. register a document.ready handler - $(myfunc)
2. act as a selector - $('#myid')
3. construct elements - $('<div>')
4. return an empty object - $()

$ is also an object that contains various utility functions $.each, etc as properties of that object. In this context, it acts like a namespace for those functions.