Textfield Input Value Returning Null

Question

I'm working on an app that makes fetch calls to a dictionary API based on the user's input. The problem is, I can't seem to get the input value from the search bar. Currently, all that's being logged to the console is an empty string. I currently have my code inside of a DOMContentLoaded event listener. When I take my code out of the DOMContentLoaded function, I am getting a null value returned. This is incredibly straightforward but I can't seem to figure out what is getting muddled here. Here is the code;

window.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', () => {
    const searchBar = document.getElementById('search-bar');
    const userInput = searchBar.value;
    const searchButton = document.getElementById('search-button');

    const test = () => console.log(userInput);
    
    searchButton.addEventListener('click', test);
});

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">

    <script src="app.js"></script>

    <title>Dictionary</title>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Dictionary</h1>

    <input type="text" id="search-bar" placeholder="Find a definition"/>
    <button id="search-button">Search</button>

    <div id="results-area">

    </div>
</body>
</html>

Thanks for the help.

TAHER El Mehdi · Accepted Answer · 2022-08-01 20:08:54Z

3

The issue was you're getting always the first value of input which is empty, to get the new value call searchBar.value on the click of button.

window.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', () => {
  const searchBar = document.getElementById('search-bar');
  
  const searchButton = document.getElementById('search-button');

  const getInputValue = () => {
    let userInput = searchBar.value;
    console.log(userInput);
  }

  searchButton.addEventListener('click', getInputValue);
});

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">

<head>
  <meta charset="UTF-8">
  <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">

  <script src="app.js"></script>

  <title>Dictionary</title>
</head>

<body>
  <h1>Dictionary</h1>

  <input type="text" id="search-bar" placeholder="Find a definition" />
  <button id="search-button">Search</button>

  <div id="results-area">

  </div>
</body>

</html>

answered Aug 1, 2022 at 20:08

TAHER El Mehdi

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1 Comment

Neuroneer Over a year ago

Ah, very simple indeed! I appreciate the help.

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