.attr('href', ...) may change the text part.

[anonymous]

On IE8, I have element <a href=" http://testurl">test@test</a> and use .attr('href', ' http://testurl2') to change the href. But the text part (test@test) is changed to  http://testurl2 too.

The repro is at:  http://jsfiddle.net/7x3RV/2/

[rwaldron]

 http://jsfiddle.net/rwaldron/7x3RV/6/

[jitter]

This is a bug in IE not jQuery as this  test case demonstrates.

Related information found by quick googling

•  http://webbugtrack.blogspot.com/2008/07/bug-140-changing-mailto-links-error-in.html
•  http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/iewebdevelopment/thread/aa6bf9a5-0c0b-4a02-a115-c5b85783ca8c

I'm not sure if this is fixable.

[danheberden]

Well a fix would add, imo, too much overhead. As jitter's second link mentions (though i put in a check for the @ before bothering with replacing crap)

var $a = $(this), // assuming your link element in a click handler or whatever
       old = $a.html();
$a.attr('href', '//whaver'); // set the href
if ( old.match( /@/ ) ) { // or indexOf , whatever
    $a.html( old );
}

[jitter]

Given that there is a workaround for this but the workaround is impractical to get into jQuery core I close this one.