jQuery - "argument parser" for classes

I'm trying to configure jQuery plugins trough classes applied to elements to which these plugins are attached.

for example:

<div class="move amt-10 dir-left">
...
</div>

and the js:

$('.move').each(function(){
  var classes 开发者_高级运维= $(this).attr('class');

  // this is from: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3955345/javascript-jquery-get-number-from-string
  var amount = parseInt(/amt-(\d+)/.exec(classes)[1], 10);
  var direction = /dir-([^\s]+)/.exec(classes)[1];
  // do stuff here based on amount/direction variables
});

it works for this particular case, but since I'm doing this for other plugins too, I was wondering how could create some kind of "parser" for this kind of options passed trough classes, so I can write less code :)

Your example refactored using jQuery.data and HTML5 data-* attributes

<div class="move" data-amt="10" data-dir="left"></div>

$('.move').each(function(){
  var amount = $(this).data('amt');
  var direction = $(this).data('dir');
  // do stuff here based on amount/direction variables
});

Another good option for this sort of thing is the jquery metadata plugin:

http://plugins.jquery.com/project/metadata