Why .data() function of jQuery is better to prevent memory leaks?

Posted by burak ozdogan on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by burak ozdogan
Published on 2010-04-30T12:09:48Z Indexed on 2010/04/30 12:27 UTC
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Hi,

Regarding to jQuery utility function jQuery.data() the online documentation says:

"The jQuery.data() method allows us to attach data of any type to DOM elements in a way that is safe from circular references and therefore from memory leaks. "

Why to use:

document.body.foo = 52; 

can result a memory leak -or in what conditions- so that I should use

jQuery.data(document.body, 'foo', 52);

Should I ALWAYS prefer .data() instead of using expandos in any case?

(I would appreciate if you can provide an example to compare the differences)

Thanks,

burak ozdogan

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