get the value of rel attribut of a link on click event of link using jquery

I have many link like this with different rel attributes

<a href="#" class="buy" rel="WV开发者_如何学GoSEU1Y">buy</a>

I want to get the value of rel attribute on click... but this code doesn't seem to work but firebug also doesn't fire any error in console. What am i doing wrong?

$("a.buy").click(function(event) {
event.preventDefault();
var msg =  $(this).attr('rel');
alert(msg);

});

update: I corrected the html error i had. Its not preventing default. And the click event doesnt seem to work.

Adding the code top of all the other scripts worked.

It is working fine here http://jsfiddle.net/niklasvh/NFfe5/ but note that you have an error in your HTML, you are missing the quotation mark around href=#"

Make sure your code is wrapped in a DOM ready as well:

$(function(){
// your code
});

try this

$(document).ready(function(){

       $("a.buy").live('click',function(event) {
          event.preventDefault();
          var msg =  $(this).attr('rel');
          alert(msg);

        });   
});

this is bound to the global object in this case. I believe that event.target will be the DOM object you want.

$("a.buy").click(function(event) {
event.preventDefault();
//here, this refers to the global object, not the a element
//unless jquery is doing some magic to bind it
//event.target at this point in execution should be the a element
var msg =  $(this).attr('rel'); 
alert(msg);

});

I have tested, the write is no problem. Code is as follows:

<a href="#" class="buy" rel="WVSEU1Y">buy</a>
<script type="text/javascript">
    $(function () {
        $(".buy").bind("click", function () {
            alert($(this).attr("rel"));
        });
    })
</script>