jQuery - Access form items through function

Question

I found on some examples on the web that people were passing the form to a function and then they were only using the id of the item to access it like in :

<form id="frm">
<input type="text" id="textbox" name="textbox" value="some value" />
</form>

<script>
console.log(getelementval("#frm"));

function getelementval(frm) {
return frm.textbox.val();
}
</script>

But FireBug tells me that frm.textbox is undefined... Then I'm searching why it doesn't work on the net but I didn't find anything explaining this option and how to use it. Any clues?

Why would you use this ugliness if you have jQuery?

kapa
– kapa

2012-10-20 00:18:08 +00:00
Commented Oct 20, 2012 at 0:18 — kapa
– kapa, Commented Oct 20, 2012 at 0:18

Blender · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-20 00:18:27Z

3

You will have to modify the JS slightly to make this work:

function getelementval(frm) {
    return $(frm)[0].textbox.value;
}

Demo: http://jsfiddle.net/gdZEK/2/

$(frm) returns an element matching the selector.
[0] fetches the actual DOM element.
.textbox works on DOM elements only, not jQuery objects. It matches [name='textbox'].
.value needs to be used instead of .val(), as .textbox isn't a jQuery object.

Honestly, I don't really see how this is better than just using jQuery:

$('#frm input[name="textbox"]').val();

edited Oct 20, 2012 at 0:18

answered Oct 20, 2012 at 0:13

Blender

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1 Comment

John Dvorak Over a year ago

@bažmegakapa agreed. +1-able even without :-) see the revisons :-)

codingbiz · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-20 00:16:07Z

1

This is pure JavaScript and not JQuery

function getelementval(frm) {
   var f = document.getElementById(frm);
   return f.textbox.value;
}

console.log(getelementval("frm"));

JQuery version

function getelementval(frm) {
   var f = $(frm)[0];
   return f.textbox.value;
}

console.log(getelementval("#frm"));

answered Oct 20, 2012 at 0:16

codingbiz

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2 Comments

John Dvorak Over a year ago

this is not the normal way to do it with jQuery, but the vanillaJS method is good for reference

codingbiz Over a year ago

the JQuery stuff could get messy - I just wanted to keep it simple and clear

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