I am calling bootstrap tab from another function. I wonder why this works

if (!$('#' + sPagerName).find('a[href$="' + sTabName + '"]').parents("li").hasClass('active')){
  $('#' + sPagerName).find('a[href$="' + sTabName + '"]').trigger("click");
}

And this does not

$('#' + sPagerName)(' a[href="#' + sTabName + '"]').tab('show');

Is this the reason .tab('show') is not called from another function.