All these functions are used to attach an event handler function to the selected elements or selectors. In this article I will take you through all the four set of functions to get an idea of what it is.

To start with, let me list down all the functions with short description and release details.

Which function to use? confused let’s go through the below details then you will be in a good position to decide which one to use and when.

.bind() and .unbind()

The .bind() method is used to register an events to existing html elements and .unbind() method is used to remove events, that are registered by .bind() method.

Syntax:-

Sample : –

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 $( document ).ready(function() {
  $( "#foo" ).bind( "click", function( event ) {
    alert( "The mouse cursor is at (" +
      event.pageX + ", " + event.pageY +
      ")" );
  });
});

The above code will cause a click on the element with ID foo to report the page coordinates of the mouse cursor at the time of the click.

Read more from http://api.jquery.com/bind/, http://api.jquery.com/unbind/

.live() and .die()

.live() method is used to add event handler to elements that are currently available in the page or dynamically added to the page whereas .die() is used to remove any handler that has been attached with .live().

Note: .live() and .die() are removed from jQuery version 1.9.

Sample:-

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<a class="link">Link Static</a>
<button id="addmore" type="button">Add more</button> 

 $(document).ready(function() {
   $('#addmore').click(function() {
      $('body').append(' <a class="link">Link Dynamic</a>');
        return false; 
  }); 
   $("a.link").bind('click', function() {
      alert('I am clicked');
   });
  });

As per the above code, when ever we click on the hyper-link (<a>) it will show an alert message.. We can add hyper-links dynamically using the button. but dynamically added links will not have click event attached. To make it work for both static control and dynamic we need to rewrite the code using live() as below,

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<a class="link">Link Static</a>
<button id="addmore" type="button">Add more</button> 

 $(document).ready(function() {
   $('#addmore').click(function() {
      $('body').append(' <a class="link">Link Dynamic</a>');
        return false; 
  }); 
   $("a.link").live('click', function() {
      alert('I am clicked');
   });
  });

Now all the static and dynamically created links will have the alert method event attached.

Read more from http://api.jquery.com/live/, http://api.jquery.com/die/

.delegate() and .undelegate()

.delegate() method behaves in a similar fashion to the .live() method, but the major difference is that It attaches the event handler to the context , rather than the document. The .undelegate() method is a way of removing event handlers that have been bound using .delegate().

Sample :-

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$( "table" ).delegate( "td", "click", function() {
  $( this ).toggleClass( "chosen" );
});

Read more from http://api.jquery.com/delegate/, http://api.jquery.com/undelegate/

.on() and .off()

The .on() method attaches event handlers to the currently selected set of elements in the jQuery object. The .on() method provides all functionality required for attaching event handlers. The .off() method removes event handlers that were attached with .on().

Sample:-

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$("p").on("click",function(){
  alert("The paragraph was clicked.");
});

The above code will be attaching the specified event to all (current and future) <p>.

Below code block is taken from jQuery 1.7.1.

You can see that for all the above listed methods the .on() method is being “overloaded” with different signatures, which in turn changes how the event binding is wired-up. The .on() method bring a lot of consistency to the API and hopefully makes things slightly less confusing.

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bind: function( types, data, fn ) {
    return this.on( types, null, data, fn );
},
unbind: function( types, fn ) {
    return this.off( types, null, fn );
},

live: function( types, data, fn ) {
    jQuery( this.context ).on( types, this.selector, data, fn );
    return this;
},
die: function( types, fn ) {
    jQuery( this.context ).off( types, this.selector || "**", fn );
    return this;
},

delegate: function( selector, types, data, fn ) {
    return this.on( types, selector, data, fn );
},
undelegate: function( selector, types, fn ) {
    return arguments.length == 1 ? 
        this.off( selector, "**" ) : 
        this.off( types, selector, fn );
},

// ... more code ...

Read more from http://api.jquery.com/on/, http://api.jquery.com/off/

Comparison

The .bind() method registers the type of event and an event handler directly to the DOM element. The .bind() doesn’t work for elements added dynamically that matches the same selector. This method is pretty easy and quick to wire-up event handlers. The shorthand methods like .click(), .hover(), etc make it even easier to wire-up event handlers. There is a performance issue while working with large selection as the method attaches the same event handler to every matched element in the selection.The attachment is done upfront which can have performance issues on page load.

The basic difference between .bind() and .live() is bind will not attach the event handler to those elements which are added/appended after DOM is loaded and there is only one event handler registered instead of the numerous event handlers that could have been registered with the .bind() method. When using .live() events always delegate all the way up to the document. This can affect performance if your DOM tree is deep. Chaining is not properly supported using .live() method. Using event.stopPropagation() is no longer helpful because the event has already delegated all the way up to the document. .live() method is deprecated as of jQuery 1.7 and removed from jQuery 1.9.

The .delegate() method is very powerful, The difference between .live() and .delegate() is, live function can’t be used in chaining. live function needs to be used directly on a selector/element. Also .delegate() works on dynamically added elements to the DOM where the selectors match. Chaining is supported correctly in .delegate().

The .on() method attaches event handlers to the currently selected set of elements in the jQuery object. As of jQuery 1.7, the .on() method provides all functionality required for attaching event handlers. Brings uniformity to the various event binding methods. but as the the way we call .on() method the behaviour also changes.

Note: If you are using jQuery 1.7+ then its advised to use .on() for attaching events to elements or selectors.

Conclusion

All the these jQuery functions are used to attach events to selectors or elements. Some methods performs better in some situations. If you are using jQuery 1.7+ then its advised to use .on() over all the event binding methods.

References

• http://api.jquery.com/

Summary

from: http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/778374/JQUERY-JSON-and-Angular-Interview-questions