hideously, painfully annoying problem of death

[mammothman42]

WHY, oh WHY, won't my cute little js work? it consistently returns
"initial", that is, it fails to update the hidden field value. PLEASE
help a humbled, annoyed fellow programmer.

var html='<input type="hidden" name="length" value="initial"/>';

var value=1;

document.write(html);
increaseValue();

function increaseValue()
{
value++;
document.getElementsByName('length').value=value;
}

cheers
dave

 

[Berislav Lopac]

WHY, oh WHY, won't my cute little js work? it consistently returns
"initial", that is, it fails to update the hidden field value. PLEASE
help a humbled, annoyed fellow programmer.

var html='<input type="hidden" name="length" value="initial"/>';

var value=1;

document.write(html);
increaseValue();

function increaseValue()
{
value++;
document.getElementsByName('length').value=value;
}

Off of my head, I would say that getElementsByName() (Are you sure there is
such a method? I have never heard about it; there are getElementById and
getElementsByTagName, but I don't know everything...) doesn't return a
single object but a collection of objects (since there can be more than one
element of the same name.

Use either ID and getElementById, or (if I am correct)
document.getElementsByName('length')[0].value

 

[Michael Winter]

On Mon, 4 Oct 2004 12:08:15 +0200, Berislav Lopac

[snip]

Off of my head, I would say that getElementsByName() (Are you sure there
is such a method? I have never heard about it; there are getElementById
and getElementsByTagName, but I don't know everything...)

There is a method called getElementsByName (which I keep forgetting
about...). It is part of the HTMLDocument interface (implemented by the
document object) as described in the DOM HTML Specification.

doesn't return a single object but a collection of objects (since there
can be more than one element of the same name.

....and it does return a collection

Use either ID and getElementById, or (if I am correct)
document.getElementsByName('length')[0].value

Alternatively, if the element is the descendant of a form:

document.forms['formName'].elements['length'].value

Mike

 

[mammothman42]

ahhh ok, all good now. thanks for that guys.

cheers
dave

 

[Ivo]

Alternatively, if the element is the descendant of a form:

document.forms['formName'].elements['length'].value

Additionally, naming a form element 'length' is asking for trouble, since

document.forms['formName'].elements.length

is already where the number of elements is stored...

 

[Michael Winter]

[snip]

Additionally, naming a form element 'length' is asking for trouble [...]

Good point. I missed that.

Mike

 

[mammothman42]

lol yeah i need myself a decent thesaurus for my variable names

 

[bruce]

WHY, oh WHY, won't my cute little js work? it consistently returns
"initial", that is, it fails to update the hidden field value. PLEASE
help a humbled, annoyed fellow programmer.

var html='<input type="hidden" name="length" value="initial"/>';

var value=1;

document.write(html);
increaseValue();

function increaseValue()
{
value++;
document.getElementsByName('length').value=value;
}

cheers
dave

Personally, I wouldn't use "value" as the name of a javascript
variable. Just asking for trouble somewhere along the way. I'm
surprised it works.