Radio buttons do not appear checked

[Phil Powell]

<b>Agency 4</b>
<input type="radio" name="permission[4]" value="1" checked> Yes
<input type="radio" name="permission[4]" value="0" > No
<br>
<b>Agency 5</b>
<input type="radio" name="permission[5]" value="1" checked> Yes
<input type="radio" name="permission[5]" value="0" > No
<br>


I have it set up this way but upon viewing in the browser none of the
radio buttons appear checked.

By the way the radio button names MUST remain in the PHP array format
as they will be referenced EXACTLY like that by PHP on the server end.
Sorry can't change that.

What can I do?

Phil

 

[Mike]

I think what you want want is to change your input type to "checkbox"

Cheers,
Mike

 

[Hywel Jenkins]

<b>Agency 4</b>
<input type="radio" name="permission[4]" value="1" checked> Yes
<input type="radio" name="permission[4]" value="0" > No
<br>
<b>Agency 5</b>
<input type="radio" name="permission[5]" value="1" checked> Yes
<input type="radio" name="permission[5]" value="0" > No
<br>

I have it set up this way but upon viewing in the browser none of the
radio buttons appear checked.

By the way the radio button names MUST remain in the PHP array format
as they will be referenced EXACTLY like that by PHP on the server end.
Sorry can't change that.

Works for me in IE6 and Firebird 0.6.1

What can I do?

Find a more appropriate group. This is neither a PHP nor JavaScript
issue.

 

[Andy Hassall]

<b>Agency 4</b>
<input type="radio" name="permission[4]" value="1" checked> Yes
<input type="radio" name="permission[4]" value="0" > No
<br>
<b>Agency 5</b>
<input type="radio" name="permission[5]" value="1" checked> Yes
<input type="radio" name="permission[5]" value="0" > No
<br>


I have it set up this way but upon viewing in the browser none of the
radio buttons appear checked.

Works for me, on IE6 and Mozilla 1.4. What browser are you using?

 

[Andy Hassall]

<b>Agency 4</b>
<input type="radio" name="permission[4]" value="1" checked> Yes
<input type="radio" name="permission[4]" value="0" > No

I think what you want want is to change your input type to "checkbox"

Why? How can the reply be 'Yes' and 'No' at the same time? Radio looks the
sensible choice here.

 

[VK]

Any name has to start with a letter and consist of any combination of
letters, numbers and underscores to the total length of 255 characters.
(Where the "letter" means any character from the a-z, A-Z range)
This is a vary basic of any programming language including JavaScript.
Otherwise you are on the merci of a particular system (browser) - will it
eat your wrong names or not.

 

[Andy Hassall]

<b>Agency 4</b>
<input type="radio" name="permission[4]" value="1" checked> Yes
<input type="radio" name="permission[4]" value="0" > No
<br>
<b>Agency 5</b>
<input type="radio" name="permission[5]" value="1" checked> Yes
<input type="radio" name="permission[5]" value="0" > No
<br>

I have it set up this way but upon viewing in the browser none of the
radio buttons appear checked.

By the way the radio button names MUST remain in the PHP array format
as they will be referenced EXACTLY like that by PHP on the server end.
Sorry can't change that.

Any name has to start with a letter and consist of any combination of
letters, numbers and underscores to the total length of 255 characters.
(Where the "letter" means any character from the a-z, A-Z range)

Not true, see below.

This is a vary basic of any programming language including JavaScript.
Otherwise you are on the merci of a particular system (browser) - will it
eat your wrong names or not.

permission[4] is a valid value for the name attribute of the <input> element,
as described in the HTML specification.

The input element's name attribute is of type CDATA with no further
restrictions defined by the specification.

The last discussion I remember of this ended up with these messages:
(very long URL - your newsreader may wrap it)

http://groups.google.co.uk/groups?h...l.misc&[email protected]&lr=&hl=en

The message linked says [] in an input name is invalid, the replies disprove
this.

Individual languages may have trouble with non-alphabetic characters as part
of a name attribute, but it's valid HTML and so should really be possible to
deal with it in any language working with HTML.

(BTW I'm not sure why this is posted to either of the PHP or JavaScript
newsgroups, since the only posted content is in valid HTML)

 

[Geoff Berrow]

Any name has to start with a letter and consist of any combination of
letters, numbers and underscores to the total length of 255 characters.
(Where the "letter" means any character from the a-z, A-Z range)
This is a vary basic of any programming language including JavaScript.
Otherwise you are on the merci of a particular system (browser) - will it
eat your wrong names or not.

Wish I'd read that earlier. I spent three hours today trying to figure
out a simple javascript problem until I figured out I could not call my
checkboxes 1,2,3, etc

 

[Richard Cornford]

Not true, see below.

The message linked says [] in an input name is invalid, the
replies disprove this.

I don't think that the discussion that you referenced does prove the
general suggestion that [ and ] are invalid in HTML 4 name attribute
strings is incorrect. If I look at the HTM versions of the DTDs I find
that the Name attributes are described as CDATA and the term CDATA is
linked to:-

<quote cite="http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/types.html#type-cdata">
....
For some HTML 4 attributes with CDATA attribute values, the
specification imposes further constraints on the set of legal values for
the attribute that may not be expressed by the DTD.
....

ID and NAME tokens must begin with a letter ([A-Za-z]) and may be
followed by any number of letters, digits ([0-9]), hyphens ("-"),
underscores ("_"), colons (":"), and periods (".").
....
</quote>

- which is part of the HTML 4 specification and "imposes further
constraints" on the contents of name attribute strings beyond the normal
definition of CDATA.

Individual languages may have trouble with non-alphabetic
characters as part of a name attribute, but it's valid HTML
and so should really be possible to deal with it in any
language working with HTML.

Valid HTML or not, JavaScript can access properties with names that do
not represent valid identifiers in JavaScript by using square bracket
notation instead of dot notation:-

<URL: http://jibbering.com/faq/#FAQ4_25 >
-and-
<URL: http://jibbering.com/faq/#FAQ4_39 >

Richard.

 

[Andy Hassall]

Not true, see below.

The message linked says [] in an input name is invalid, the
replies disprove this.

I don't think that the discussion that you referenced does prove the
general suggestion that [ and ] are invalid in HTML 4 name attribute
strings is incorrect. If I look at the HTM versions of the DTDs I find
that the Name attributes are described as CDATA and the term CDATA is
linked to:-

<quote cite="http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/types.html#type-cdata">
...
For some HTML 4 attributes with CDATA attribute values, the
specification imposes further constraints on the set of legal values for
the attribute that may not be expressed by the DTD.
...

ID and NAME tokens must begin with a letter ([A-Za-z]) and may be
followed by any number of letters, digits ([0-9]), hyphens ("-"),
underscores ("_"), colons (":"), and periods (".").

The name attribute of input is not one of the ID or NAME types, so that
restriction doesn't apply.

There are attributes that are declared as ID or NAME; input's name attribute
is not one of them.

...
</quote>

- which is part of the HTML 4 specification and "imposes further
constraints" on the contents of name attribute strings beyond the normal
definition of CDATA.

No, the restriction on the NAME and ID types don't apply to the CDATA type.

Quoting the whole lot:

"
* CDATA is a sequence of characters from the document character set and may
include character entities. User agents should interpret attribute values as
follows:
Replace character entities with characters,
Ignore line feeds,
Replace each carriage return or tab with a single space.
User agents may ignore leading and trailing white space in CDATA attribute
values (e.g., " myval " may be interpreted as "myval"). Authors should not
declare attribute values with leading or trailing white space.

For some HTML 4 attributes with CDATA attribute values, the specification
imposes further constraints on the set of legal values for the attribute that
may not be expressed by the DTD.

Although the STYLE and SCRIPT elements use CDATA for their data model, for
these elements, CDATA must be handled differently by user agents. Markup and
entities must be treated as raw text and passed to the application as is. The
first occurrence of the character sequence "</" (end-tag open delimiter) is
treated as terminating the end of the element's content. In valid documents,
this would be the end tag for the element.

* ID and NAME tokens must begin with a letter ([A-Za-z]) and may be followed by
any number of letters, digits ([0-9]), hyphens ("-"), underscores ("_"), colons
(":"), and periods (".").

* IDREF and IDREFS are references to ID tokens defined by other attributes.
IDREF is a single token and IDREFS is a space-separated list of tokens.

* NUMBER tokens must contain at least one digit ([0-9]).
"

So, it's saying that if you look through the specification on some of the
attributes that are of CDATA type, there are then further notes on restrictions
not expressed by it being of type CDATA.

There are no further restrictions listed for input's name attribute that I can
find - if you can see one please post it!

There then follows descriptions of the ID, NAME, IDREF, IDREFS and NUMBER
types; none of which are CDATA, they're separate types.

For example:

http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/links.html#adef-name-A

The name attribute of the <a> tag is of type CDATA, but it says here that it
is restricted to the namespace of the id attribute, which is of type 'name'.

That's a "further constraint on the set of legal values for the attribute that
may not be expressed by the DTD"

Valid HTML or not, JavaScript can access properties with names that do
not represent valid identifiers in JavaScript by using square bracket
notation instead of dot notation:-

<URL: http://jibbering.com/faq/#FAQ4_25 >
-and-
<URL: http://jibbering.com/faq/#FAQ4_39 >

Sounds good.

 

[Richard Cornford]

No, the restriction on the NAME and ID types don't apply to
the CDATA type.

<snip>

Looking at it again I think you are right. Looking at the HTML source of
types.html made it clear that CDATA (and notes related to it) is/are
separate from NAME and ID (separate LI elements) and the additional
restrictions on NAME and ID do not apply. Interesting to see semantic
mark-up actually providing additional clarity.

Richard.

 

[Geoff Berrow]

ID and NAME tokens must begin with a letter ([A-Za-z]) and may be
followed by any number of letters, digits ([0-9]), hyphens ("-"),
underscores ("_"), colons (":"), and periods (".").

The name attribute of input is not one of the ID or NAME types, so that
restriction doesn't apply.

There are attributes that are declared as ID or NAME; input's name attribute
is not one of them.

You lost me with most of this, but I thought I'd show you the little
problem I had today

This doesn't work

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
function checkOne(j) {
box = eval("document.form1." + j);
if (box.checked == false) box.checked = true;
}
</SCRIPT>

<td><select name=\"select".$i."\" onChange=\"checkOne(".$i.")\">

(where $i is a number)

But this does:

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
function checkOne(j) {
box = eval("document.form1.C" + j);
if (box.checked == false) box.checked = true;
}
</SCRIPT>

where I preface the checkbox name with a C

 

[Lasse Reichstein Nielsen]

The name attribute of input is not one of the ID or NAME types, so that
restriction doesn't apply.

There are attributes that are declared as ID or NAME; input's name attribute
is not one of them.

You seem to be correct.

Checking the DTD of HTML 4.01, only the id attribute is ID, and only
two attributes of the meta tag and the type %Lanuagecode are NAME.

The only thing that bothers me a bit is this:
<URL:http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/global.html#adef-id>
where the id attribute is declared as a (lowercase) "name", which linkes
to <URL:http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/types.html#type-name> (the paragraph on
ID and NAME tokens). According to the DTD, the id should be an ID.


Hmm, I also stubmled over this paragraph:

--- <URL:http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/links.html#anchors-with-id> ---
The id and name attributes share the same name space. This means that
they cannot both define an anchor with the same name in the same
document. It is permissible to use both attributes to specify an
element's unique identifier for the following elements: A, APPLET,
FORM, FRAME, IFRAME, IMG, and MAP. When both attributes are used on a
single element, their values must be identical.
---

I can't read with absolute certainty whether this restriction is only
on the mentioned elements, and id and name can be distinct on other
elements, but I believe it is only for those mentioned. These elements
are the ones that are represented in Javascript in global collections,
(document.{links,anchors,applets,forms,images}, and window.frames),
so they should be globally unique. Comments?

http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/links.html#adef-name-A

The name attribute of the <a> tag is of type CDATA, but it says here that it
is restricted to the namespace of the id attribute, which is of type 'name'.

I don't read it as saying the CDATA is *restricted* to the name space
of the id attribute. It says
"Note that this attribute shares the same name space as the id attribute."
Sharing a name space just means that an id attribute and a name attribute
with the same value will conflict, and it isn't allowed.

I can't see anything that prevents the name attribute from containing
characters not possible in an id attribute In fact, in the same
section as the above quote, they explicitly mentions "D&uuml;rst" as a
legal name attribute value for an anchor.


Thanks for pointing this out. I always like to get smarter
/L

 

[De.Snor]

<b>Agency 4</b>
<input type="radio" name="permission[4]" value="1" checked> Yes
<input type="radio" name="permission[4]" value="0" > No
<br>
<b>Agency 5</b>
<input type="radio" name="permission[5]" value="1" checked> Yes
<input type="radio" name="permission[5]" value="0" > No
<br>


I have it set up this way but upon viewing in the browser none of the
radio buttons appear checked.

By the way the radio button names MUST remain in the PHP array format
as they will be referenced EXACTLY like that by PHP on the server end.
Sorry can't change that.

What can I do?

If jou'r using XHTML1 jou have to change
checked
into
checked="checked"

 

[VK]

The naming confusion stays on the fact that smart guys in 3W have forgotten
of the dual nature of named page elements (forms, form elements, divs etc.)
If browser supports JavaScript, each named element is being AUTOMATICALLY
added to the corresponding JavaScript array (document.forms[],
document.forms[x].elements[] etc.) on page load.
So each name is not just a name, but a potential JavaScript variable. So it
has to follow the JavaScript naming scheme. Otherwise JavaScript fails to
register the element in an array, which invalidates the element for
scripting.

I have no time for further research, but I bet my coffee against your sugar:
If you disallow JavaScript in your browser, it will eat CDATA names with no
problem.

<b>Agency 4</b>
<input type="radio" name="permission[4]" value="1" checked> Yes
<input type="radio" name="permission[4]" value="0" > No
<br>
<b>Agency 5</b>
<input type="radio" name="permission[5]" value="1" checked> Yes
<input type="radio" name="permission[5]" value="0" > No
<br>


I have it set up this way but upon viewing in the browser none of the
radio buttons appear checked.

By the way the radio button names MUST remain in the PHP array format
as they will be referenced EXACTLY like that by PHP on the server end.
Sorry can't change that.

What can I do?

If jou'r using XHTML1 jou have to change
checked
into
checked="checked"

 

[Lasse Reichstein Nielsen]

The naming confusion stays on the fact that smart guys in 3W have forgotten
of the dual nature of named page elements (forms, form elements, divs etc.)
If browser supports JavaScript, each named element is being AUTOMATICALLY
added to the corresponding JavaScript array (document.forms[],
document.forms[x].elements[] etc.) on page load.

Maybe they haven't forgotten it. Maybe they never considered it.
Javascript, or other script languages (and there are plenty that *can*
be embedded in a web page), are separate from HTML. They need not, and
should not, affect the specification of HTML (IMNSHO).

So each name is not just a name, but a potential JavaScript variable.

Not a variable. A property. That is a *big* difference, since any
string can be used as a property name.

So it has to follow the JavaScript naming scheme. Otherwise
JavaScript fails to register the element in an array, which
invalidates the element for scripting.

Not at all.

This works in Mozilla and Opera (and fails in IE6 even if the name is
as simple as "aa").
---
<a name="DX &uuml;t" href="test.html">FooM</a>
<script type="text/javascript">
alert(document.links["DX üt"].href);
</script>
---
The W3C-DOM method version works in both of these and in IE6:
---
<a name="DX &uuml;t" href="test.html">FooM</a>
<script type="text/javascript">
alert(document.links.namedItem("DX üt").href);
</script>
---
IE apparently doesn't follow the W3C DOM 2 HTML recommendation (but we
knew that).

I have no time for further research, but I bet my coffee against your sugar:
If you disallow JavaScript in your browser, it will eat CDATA names with no
problem.

It will with Javascript too.

(And yes, until eariler today, I though "foo[2]" was an illegal name
attribute value in HTML, but it seems it is not.)
/L

 

[Dr John Stockton]

JRS: In article <[email protected]>, seen in

if (box.checked == false) box.checked = true;

Unless you feel that false might have been redefined, there is no need
to compare with false; there is a NOT operator.

if (!box.checked) box.checked = true;

There may be no need to test that it is not checked before checking it.

 

[VK]

Sometimes you are doing things right w/o analyzing why it's right, you just
feel that. All these years I followed the naming rule I spelled in the
original posting, no matter what language I was working with. And as a
reward I never had any problems with identifiers' names. (I had a bunch of
other problems of course
This discussion got me so exited that I took some books from the dustiest
corner of my shelve.
So...

JavaScript and JScript are both built on ECMA-262 language specifications,
approved as international standard ISO/IEC 16262. The official name for both
languages is ECMAScript (in the standardization papers).
The latest ECMA-262 specs can be obtained at www.ecma.ch


ECMA-262, Version 3 Final, paragraph 7.6:

Identifiers are interpreted according to the grammar given in Section 5.16
of the upcoming version 3.0 of the Unicode standard, with some small
modifications. This grammar is based on both normative and informative
character categories specified by the Unicode standard. The characters in
the specified categories in version 2.1 of the Unicode standard must be
treated as in those categories by all conforming ECMAScript implementations;
however, conforming ECMAScript implementations may allow additional legal
identifier characters based on the category assignment from later versions
of Unicode.
This standard specifies one departure from the grammar given in the Unicode
standard: The dollar sign ($) and the underscore (_) are permitted anywhere
in an identifier. The dollar sign is intended for use only in mechanically
generated code.
Unicode escape sequences are also permitted in identifiers, where they
contribute a single character to the identifier, as computed by the CV of
the UnicodeEscapeSequence (see section 7.8.4). The \ preceding the
UnicodeEscapeSequence does not contribute a character to the identifier. A
UnicodeEscapeSequence cannot be used to put a character into an identifier
that would otherwise be illegal. In other words, if a \
UnicodeEscapeSequence sequence were replaced by its UnicodeEscapeSequence's
CV, the result must still be a valid Identifier that has the exact same
sequence of characters as the original Identifier.
Two identifiers that are canonically equivalent according to the Unicode
standard are not equal unless they are represented by the exact same
sequence of code points (in other words, conforming ECMAScript
implementations are only required to do bitwise comparison on identifiers).
The intent is that the incoming source text has been converted to normalised
form C before it reaches the compiler.


Conclusion:
"1", "something[0]" and similar are not valid identifiers and cannot be used
for naming of variables, objects, methods and properties within the script.

Even if a particular browser allows the use of such identifiers in violation
of the ISO standards, programmer should avoid them to keep his/her code
compatible with other platforms.

The naming confusion stays on the fact that smart guys in 3W have forgotten
of the dual nature of named page elements (forms, form elements, divs etc.)
If browser supports JavaScript, each named element is being AUTOMATICALLY
added to the corresponding JavaScript array (document.forms[],
document.forms[x].elements[] etc.) on page load.

Maybe they haven't forgotten it. Maybe they never considered it.
Javascript, or other script languages (and there are plenty that *can*
be embedded in a web page), are separate from HTML. They need not, and
should not, affect the specification of HTML (IMNSHO).

So each name is not just a name, but a potential JavaScript variable.

Not a variable. A property. That is a *big* difference, since any
string can be used as a property name.

So it has to follow the JavaScript naming scheme. Otherwise
JavaScript fails to register the element in an array, which
invalidates the element for scripting.

Not at all.

This works in Mozilla and Opera (and fails in IE6 even if the name is
as simple as "aa").
---
<a name="DX &uuml;t" href="test.html">FooM</a>
<script type="text/javascript">
alert(document.links["DX üt"].href);
</script>
---
The W3C-DOM method version works in both of these and in IE6:
---
<a name="DX &uuml;t" href="test.html">FooM</a>
<script type="text/javascript">
alert(document.links.namedItem("DX üt").href);
</script>
---
IE apparently doesn't follow the W3C DOM 2 HTML recommendation (but we
knew that).

I have no time for further research, but I bet my coffee against your sugar:
If you disallow JavaScript in your browser, it will eat CDATA names with no
problem.

It will with Javascript too.

(And yes, until eariler today, I though "foo[2]" was an illegal name
attribute value in HTML, but it seems it is not.)
/L

 

[Richard Cornford]

specifications, approved as international standard ISO/IEC 16262. ...

ECMA-262, Version 3 Final, paragraph 7.6:

Identifiers are interpreted according to the grammar given in
Section 5.16 of the upcoming version 3.0 of the Unicode standard,
with some small modifications. ...

This standard specifies one departure from the grammar given in
the Unicode standard: The dollar sign ($) and the underscore
(_) are permitted anywhere in an identifier. The dollar sign is
intended for use only in mechanically generated code.
...

Conclusion:
"1", "something[0]" and similar are not valid identifiers and
cannot be used for naming of variables, objects, methods and
properties within the script.

Even if a particular browser allows the use of such identifiers
in violation of the ISO standards, programmer should avoid them
to keep his/her code compatible with other platforms.

ECMA 262 Section 7.6 describes the rules that apply whenever the
production - Identifier - is used. However, Section 11.2.1 (Property
Accessors) includes the productions (for bracket notation):-

MemeberExpression [ Expression ]
- and -
CallExpression [ Expression ]

- and the algorithm for resolving these property accessors is:-

<quote cite="ECMA 262 3rd Edition Section 11.2.1 Property Accessors">
....
The production MemberExpression : MemberExpression [ Expression ] is
evaluated as follows:

1. Evaluate MemberExpression.
2. Call GetValue(Result(1)).
3. Evaluate Expression.
4. Call GetValue(Result(3)).
5. Call ToObject(Result(2)).
6. Call ToString(Result(4)).
7. Return a value of type Reference whose base object is
Result(5) and whose property name is Result(6).

The production CallExpression : CallExpression [ Expression ] is
evaluated in exactly the same manner, except that the contained
CallExpression is evaluated in step 1.
</quote>

The result of the - Expression - is used as the property name and the
algorithm does not require that string to conform to the rules for -
Identifier - (it doesn't even check).

So, while production rules that resolve to - Identifier - should produce
errors if the character sequence used does not conform to the rules for
Identifier, ECMA Script does allow properties to be created and read
with _any_ name. If the name does not conform to the rules for
Identifier then it is necessary to use bracket notation to access the
property as that side steps the rules for Identifier.

Therefor a conforming ECMA Script implementation must allow properties
to be created and accessed by _any_ name.

And this is a good thing as even the erroneous interpretation of HTML
CDATA attribute values that attempted to place the NAME and ID
restrictions upon them still allowed character that would not be allowed
in an ECMA Script identifier.

The point at which HTML naming is restricted by the desire to script is
when the attribute values represent integer numbers, but that is more a
consequence of the DOM implementation than ECMA Script as HTML
collections make nodes available as both named properties and as integer
indexed members. So an attempt to read a property of a collection that
is named as an integer number stands a very good chance of returning the
wrong node (or just confusing the DOM implementation).

On the whole, it must be easier to side step the issue by assigning
values to HTML name and ID attributes that are also valid ECMA script
identifiers (indeed that would be the natural thing to do under most
circumstances) but when that is not possible ECMA script is quite
capable of coping with the results (at least under all realistic
circumstances).

Richard.

 

[Geoff Berrow]

Unless you feel that false might have been redefined, there is no need
to compare with false; there is a NOT operator.

if (!box.checked) box.checked = true;

There may be no need to test that it is not checked before checking it.

Well that's what you get for nicking bits of code. ;-)

Honestly John, that problem drove me up the wall - I was just happy to
get it working. I had my own code (probably equally as bad) but
scrapped it for something I found on the 'net to get it working. I
guess my own would have worked had I figured out the error.