Changing the value of a form element

[Derek Fountain]

Given a form, defined like this:

<form action="today.php" method="post" id="continue-form">

i.e without a 'name', can I change the value of an element in it from
script?

If I give it a name ('Form1') this works nicely:

document.Form1.element.value = 1;

but without the 'name' I can't find a way to do it.

The HTML is being generated by a content management system and it's less
than trivial to update so it names the form. If that's the only way
forward I can do it, but I thought I'd check first to see if there's
another way, perhaps by using that 'id' attribute...?

--
Derek Fountain on the web at http://www.derekfountain.org/

[Matt Kruse]

Derek Fountain wrote:

i.e without a 'name', can I change the value of an element in it from
script?
If I give it a name ('Form1') this works nicely:
document.Form1.element.value = 1;

It's best to avoid this syntax.

See: http://www.javascripttoolbox.com/bestpractices/#forms

--
Matt Kruse
http://www.JavascriptToolbox.com
http://www.AjaxToolbox.com

[Tim Streater]

In article <45***********************@news.zen.co.uk>,
Derek Fountain <no****@hursley.ibm.comwrote:

Given a form, defined like this:

<form action="today.php" method="post" id="continue-form">

i.e without a 'name', can I change the value of an element in it from
script?

If I give it a name ('Form1') this works nicely:

document.Form1.element.value = 1;

but without the 'name' I can't find a way to do it.

The HTML is being generated by a content management system and it's less
than trivial to update so it names the form. If that's the only way
forward I can do it, but I thought I'd check first to see if there's
another way, perhaps by using that 'id' attribute...?

This is better:

document.forms['Form1'].element.value = 1;
If push comes to shove you could do:

document.forms[0].element.value = 1;

assuming its the first (or only) form. But the first version is better
practice I would say.

Personally I would change the CMS.

[Derek Fountain]

Matt Kruse wrote:

Derek Fountain wrote:

>i.e without a 'name', can I change the value of an element in it from
script?
If I give it a name ('Form1') this works nicely:
document.Form1.element.value = 1;

It's best to avoid this syntax.

See: http://www.javascripttoolbox.com/bestpractices/#forms

Very useful link, thanks.

--
Derek Fountain on the web at http://www.derekfountain.org/

[Derek Fountain]

This is better:

>
document.forms['Form1'].element.value = 1;

Matt's link mentions that with XHTML forms without names are fine as
long as they have an ID. getElementByID() is then the answer, and that
seems to work for me. Thanks for your help though. :o)

--
Derek Fountain on the web at http://www.derekfountain.org/

[VK]

On Feb 19, 11:18 pm, Derek Fountain <[e-mail]:

Given a form, defined like this:

<form action="today.php" method="post" id="continue-form">

i.e without a 'name', can I change the value of an element in it from
script?

To keep using DOM 0 methods:

document.forms[0].elements['elementName'].value = NewValue;

That presumes of course that your form is always the first one in the
document flow - or that it has some fixed position in the flow to use
some known index for forms collection.

With DOM 1:

document.getElementById('continue-form').elements['elementName'].value
= NewValue;

[Randy Webb]

VK said the following on 2/19/2007 4:08 PM:

On Feb 19, 11:18 pm, Derek Fountain <[e-mail]:

>Given a form, defined like this:

<form action="today.php" method="post" id="continue-form">

i.e without a 'name', can I change the value of an element in it from
script?

To keep using DOM 0 methods:

document.forms[0].elements['elementName'].value = NewValue;

That presumes of course that your form is always the first one in the
document flow - or that it has some fixed position in the flow to use
some known index for forms collection.

document.forms['formIDnotNAME'].elements['elementNAMEnotID'].value;

Now, it doesn't make a difference, it will work as long as the form has
an ID and the element has a NAME.

--
Randy
Chance Favors The Prepared Mind
comp.lang.javascript FAQ - http://jibbering.com/faq/index.html
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