TouchEvent.touches

Summary

A TouchList listing all the Touch objects for touch points that are currently in contact with the touch surface, regardless of whether or not they've changed or what their target element was at touchstart time.

This property is Read only .

Syntax

var touches = touchEvent.touches;

Return value

touches
A TouchList listing all the Touch objects for touch points that are still in contact with the touch surface, regardless of whether or not they've changed or what their target element was at touchstart time.

Example

This example illustrates the TouchEvent object's TouchEvent.touches property. The TouchEvent.touches property is a TouchList object and containing a list of Touch objects for every point of contact currently touching the surface.

In following code snippet, the touchstart event handler checks the length of the TouchEvent.touches list to determine the number of touch points that were activated and then invokes different handlers depending on the number of touch points.

someElement.addEventListener('touchstart', function(e) {
   // Invoke the appropriate handler depending on the 
   // number of touch points.
   switch (e.touches.length) {
     case 1: handle_one_touch(e); break;
     case 2: handle_two_touches(e); break;
     case 3: handle_three_touches(e); break;
     default: console.log("Not supported"); break;
   }   
 }, false);

Specifications

Specification Status Comment
Touch Events – Level 2 Editor's Draft Non-stable version.
Touch Events Recommendation Initial definition.

Browser compatibility

Feature Chrome Firefox (Gecko) Internet Explorer Opera Safari (WebKit)
Basic support 22.0 18.0 (18.0) Not supported Not supported Not supported
Feature Android Android Webview Chrome for Android Firefox Mobile (Gecko) Firefox OS IE Mobile Opera Mobile Safari Mobile
Basic support (Yes) (Yes) (Yes) 6.0 (6.0) (Yes) 11 (Yes) (Yes)

Document Tags and Contributors

 Contributors to this page: AFBarstow, fscholz, jsx, kscarfone, Sheppy
 Last updated by: AFBarstow,