Event: target property

Available in workers

The read-only target property of the Event interface is a reference to the object onto which the event was dispatched. It is different from currentTarget when the event handler is called during the bubbling or capturing phase of the event.

Value

The associated EventTarget.

Example

The event.target property can be used in order to implement event delegation.

// Make a list
const ul = document.createElement("ul");
document.body.appendChild(ul);

const li1 = document.createElement("li");
const li2 = document.createElement("li");
ul.appendChild(li1);
ul.appendChild(li2);

function hide(evt) {
  // evt.target refers to the clicked <li> element
  // This is different from evt.currentTarget, which would refer to the parent <ul> in this context
  evt.target.style.visibility = "hidden";
}

// Attach the listener to the list
// It will fire when each <li> is clicked
ul.addEventListener("click", hide);

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

• Learn: Event bubbling