Your code looks fine except the possibility that if the variable declaration is inside a dom read handler then it will not be a global variable... it will be a closure variable
jQuery(function(){
//here it is a closure variable
var a_href;
$('sth a').on('click', function(e){
a_href = $(this).attr('href');
console.log(a_href);
//output is "home"
e.preventDefault();
}
})
To make the variable global, one solution is to declare the variable in global scope
var a_href;
jQuery(function(){
$('sth a').on('click', function(e){
a_href = $(this).attr('href');
console.log(a_href);
//output is "home"
e.preventDefault();
}
})
another is to set the variable as a property of the window object
window.a_href = $(this).attr('href')
Why console printing undefined
You are getting the output as undefined because even though the variable is declared, you have not initialized it with a value, the value of the variable is set only after the a element is clicked till that time the variable will have the value undefined. If you are not declaring the variable it will throw a ReferenceError