How to have click event ONLY fire on parent DIV, not children?

I have a DIV with a classed foobar, and a few DIVs inside that DIV that are unclassed, but I suppose they are inheriting the foobar class:

$('.foobar').on('click', function() { /*...do stuff...*/ });

I want that to fire off only when clicking somewhere in the DIV but not on its children DIVs.

If the e.target is the same element as this, you've not clicked on a descendant.

$('.foobar').on('click', function(e) {
  if (e.target !== this)
    return;
  
  alert( 'clicked the foobar' );
});

.foobar {
  padding: 20px; background: yellow;
}
span {
  background: blue; color: white; padding: 8px;
}

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<div class='foobar'> .foobar (alert) 
  <span>child (no alert)</span>
</div>

There's another way that works if you don't mind only targeting newer browsers. Just add the CSS

pointer-events: none;

to any children of the div you want to capture the click. Here's the support tables

http://caniuse.com/#feat=pointer-events

I did not get the accepted answer to work, but this seems to do the trick, at least in vanilla JS.

if(e.target !== e.currentTarget) return;

You can use bubbling in your favor:

$('.foobar').on('click', function(e) {
    // do your thing.
}).on('click', 'div', function(e) {
    // clicked on descendant div
    e.stopPropagation();
});

//bind `click` event handler to the `.foobar` element(s) to do work,
//then find the children of all the `.foobar` element(s)
//and bind a `click` event handler to them that stops the propagation of the event
$('.foobar').on('click', function () { ... }).children().on('click', function (event) {
    event.stopPropagation();
    //you can also use `return false;` which is the same as `event.preventDefault()` and `event.stopPropagation()` all in one (in a jQuery event handler)
});

This will stop the propagation (bubbling) of the click event on any of the children element(s) of the .foobar element(s) so the event won't reach the .foobar element(s) to fire their event handler(s).

Here is a demo: http://jsfiddle.net/bQQJP/

$(".advanced ul li").live('click',function(e){
    if(e.target != this) return;
    //code
    // this code will execute only when you click to li and not to a child
})

I had the same problem and came up with this solution (based on the other answers)

 $( ".newsletter_background" ).click(function(e) {
	if (e.target == this) {
		$(".newsletter_background").hide();
	} 
});

Basically it says if the target is the div then run the code otherwise do nothing (don't hide it)

If you can't use pointer-events: none; and are targeting modern browsers you can use composedPath to detect a direct click on the object like so:

element.addEventListener("click", function (ev) {
    if (ev.composedPath()[0] === this) {
        // your code here ...
    }
})

You can read more about composedPath here: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Event/composedPath

My case is similar but this is occasion when you have few foobar-s, and you want to close only one - per one click:

Find parent case

$(".foobar-close-button-class").on("click", function () {
    $(this).parents('.foobar').fadeOut( 100 );
    // 'this' - means that you finding some parent class from '.foobar-close-button-class'
    // '.parents' -means that you finding parent class with name '.foobar'
});

Find child case

$(".foobar-close-button-class").on("click", function () {
    $(this).child('.foobar-close-button-child-class').fadeOut( 100 );
    // 'this' - means that you finding some child class from '.foobar-close-button-class'
    // '.child' -means that you finding child class with name '.foobar-close-button-child-class'
});

You can use event.currentTarget. It will do click event only elemnt who got event.

target = e => {
    console.log(e.currentTarget);
  };

<ul onClick={target} className="folder">
      <li>
        <p>
          <i className="fas fa-folder" />
        </p>
      </li>
    </ul>

// if its li get value 
document.getElementById('li').addEventListener("click", function(e) {
                if (e.target == this) {
                    UodateNote(e.target.id);
                }
                })
                
                
                function UodateNote(e) {

    let nt_id = document.createElement("div");
    // append container to duc.
    document.body.appendChild(nt_id);
    nt_id.id = "hi";
    // get conatiner value . 
    nt_id.innerHTML = e;
    // body...
    console.log(e);

}

li{
 cursor: pointer;
    font-weight: bold;
  font-size: 20px;
    position: relative;
    width: 380px;
    height: 80px;
    background-color: silver;
    justify-content: center;
    align-items: center;
    text-align: center;
    margin-top: 0.5cm;
    border: 2px solid purple;
    border-radius: 12%;}
    
    p{
     cursor: text;
  font-size: 16px;
   font-weight: normal;
    display: block;
    max-width: 370px;
    max-height: 40px;
    overflow-x: hidden;}

<li id="li"><p>hi</p></li>