Upgraded To WordPress 4.5 – Syntax Error, Unrecognized Expression

Quick post regarding a syntax error related to a recent upgrade to WordPress 4.5.  I’ve been using this smooth scroll technique from CSS Tricks for the greater part of five years.  Today, when upgrading to WordPress 4.5 I noticed the sites scripts.js file was kicking back some new errors.  After investigating my console, I saw this particular line:

Syntax error, unrecognized expression: a[href*=#]:not([href=#])

The error is related to the newest version of jQuery that comes pre-packaged with WordPress and thankfully it’s a simple fix.  The issue is the selector is not valid within the first line of the below smooth scrolling function:

$(function() {
  $('a[href*="#"]:not([href="#"])').click(function() {
    if (location.pathname.replace(/^\//,'') == this.pathname.replace(/^\//,'') && location.hostname == this.hostname) {
      var target = $(this.hash);
      target = target.length ? target : $('[name=' + this.hash.slice(1) +']');
      if (target.length) {
        $('html, body').animate({
          scrollTop: target.offset().top
        }, 1000);
        return false;
      }
    }
  });
});

To fix it, just replace the first line of:
$('a[href*=#]:not([href=#])').click(function() { 

with:
$('a[href*=\\#]:not([href=\\#])').click(function() { 
Now we are escaping the special character that is the pound (or hashtag) sign. All set, no more errors!