A string containing the attribute value.

It's important to note that the .attr() method gets the attribute value for only the first element in the matched set. To get the value for each element individually, we need to rely on a looping construct such as jQuery's .each() method.

Using jQuery's .attr() method to get the value of an element's attribute has two main benefits:

The jQuery object, for chaining purposes.

The .attr() method is a convenient and powerful way to set the value of attributes, especially when setting multiple attributes or using values returned by a function. Let's consider the following image:

<img id="greatphoto" src="brush-seller.jpg"
  alt="brush seller" />

$('#greatphoto').attr('alt', 'Beijing Brush Seller');

$('#greatphoto')
  .attr('title', 'Photo by Kelly Clark');

$('#greatphoto').attr({
  alt: 'Beijing Brush Seller',
  title: 'photo by Kelly Clark'
});

$('#greatphoto').attr('title', function() {
  return this.alt + ' – photo by Kelly Clark'
});

The jQuery object, for chaining purposes.

The .removeAttr() method uses the JavaScript removeAttribute() function, but it has the advantage of being able to be called directly on a jQuery object and it accounts for different attribute naming across browsers.

As of jQuery 1.4, the .removeAttr() function allows us to indicate the attribute to be removed by passing in a function.