How does jQuery handle elements that don't exist on a page?
<p>I have kind of a theory question on what happens when you have jQuery searching for elements/binding to elements that do not exist on a page.</p>

<p>For example, I have a javascript file that contains many Click events, however on some pages, those click events aren't used.  Rather than making multiple javascript files and having duplicate code, I have minified most of my code down to one file.</p>

<pre><code>$('#target').click(function() {
    alert('Handler for .click() called.');
});
</code></pre>

<p>Basically to sum up my paragraph into a few simple sentences.  What happens when id "target" doesn't exist?  How does jquery handle a case like this?</p>

<p>Now, whenever I work on my website, it seems like FireFox's memory usage grows like crazy.  Not sure if this is just FireFox or not, but if I don't have element on the page, is this causing memory leaks by binding to elements that don't exist?</p>

<p>Just curious what happens behind the scene.</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>
