[jQuery] Why is removeAttr necessary? (Instead of overwriting with attr)

[jQuery] Why is removeAttr necessary? (Instead of overwriting with attr)


Hi folks,
I just spent the last hour trying to figure out why a
piece of jquery wasn't working, and finally tracked it
down to inaccurately assuming you could overwrite an
attribute with attr. Using attr to blank out values
(ex: .attr("name", "")) seems to work fine, but as
soon as I try to use it with an actual variable (ex:
.attr("id", idvar)), nothing happns.
I finally discovered that the code worked perfectly if
I called removeAttr("id") first, prior to the
.attr("id", idvar) call.
Can anyone explain to me why overwriting doesn't work
with attr? Is this a bug? Am I missing some kind of
core concept?
Thanks,
~Kim
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