DEV Community

Cover image for What is event bubbling and event capturing in JavaScript?
Santan kr Sharma
Santan kr Sharma

Posted on

What is event bubbling and event capturing in JavaScript?

Imagine you're at a party with a group of friends. You're all hanging out in the living room, but suddenly someone yells "PIZZA IS HERE!" and everyone starts rushing towards the door.

Event capturing is like your friend who heard the pizza guy outside and ran out to meet him at the front gate. He's trying to intercept the pizza before it even gets to the door, so he can get the first slice.

Event bubbling, on the other hand, is like when the pizza finally makes it to the door, and everyone in the living room rushes towards the door to get their slice. It starts with the person closest to the door, and then moves outward to include everyone else in the room.

In JavaScript, events work in a similar way. When something happens, like a button is clicked, the event starts at the top-level "document" element and then moves down to the specific element that was clicked. That's event capturing. Then, once the event has been handled by the clicked element, it starts "bubbling" back up to the top-level document element, passing through all the parent elements along the way.

I hope that helps make event bubbling and event capturing a bit more fun and memorable!

If you enjoyed this post, please consider following me for more content like this!

Top comments (0)