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WolfShade
WolfShade
Legend
January 22, 2016
Answered

Keeping form data for later use

  • January 22, 2016
  • 1 reply
  • 911 views

Hello, all,

I know that this question doesn't really belong here, but the General Development forum is dead (I've already asked a question, there - no response), and the smartest users that I interact with are in this forum, anyway.  So, please forgive the audacity of posing this question, here, and please do not move it to another forum.

I've been tasked with setting a form up so that a user can check a checkbox that will save the form for re-use, later.  The user can give it a name, and it will appear in a SELECT drop-down on future visits.

What I have in mind (and I've done, so far) is to use jQuery.serializeArray() and JSON.stringify() to save the form fields and data as a string in a single column of a database table.  So far, so good.

However, upon retrieving said string, posting it back to the browser and using JSON.parse() to make that data into an object, I'm facing some real difficulty in populating the data back into the form.

The code that I have, so far, is not the actual form that I'm working on - I've created a dummy form just to get this code to work, and will transfer it to the production form as soon as I've got this working.

I'm going to try to get code from my dev environment (isolated from internet) to post here.  I'll be right back.  (If I sit here, the session will expire before I hit the "Post" button on this message.)

V/r,

^_^

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Dave Ferguson

    The select form elements don't have an attribute of type.  So, trying to get that attribute would fail.  What I would do is add a data attribute to all the fields to store the type.

    <select name="inputc" id="inputc" data-type="select"> 

    then update your code to get the field...

    var frminpt = datab, $el = $("[name=" + frminpt.name + "]"), type = $el.data('type'); alert(frminpt.name + " is a " + type)

    hth,

    --Dave

    1 reply

    WolfShade
    WolfShadeAuthor
    Legend
    January 22, 2016

    Okay.. here is the test form that I'm working with:

    <form name="formthis" id="formthis">
    

    Input a: <input type="text" name="inputa" id="inputa" />
    

    <br />Input b: <input type="password" name="inputb" id="inputb" />
    

    <br />Input c: <select name="inputc" id="inputc">
    

                <option value="">Select</option>
    

                <option value="this">THIS</option>
    

                <option value="that">THAT</option>
    

            </select>
    

    <br />Input d: <input type="checkbox" name="inputd" id="inputd_1" value="inputd_1" />1 <input type="checkbox" name="inputd" id="inputd_2" value="inputd_2" />2 <input type="checkbox" name="inputd" id="inputd_3" value="inputd_3" />3
    

    <br />Input e: <select name="inpute" size="3" multiple="multiple" id="inpute">
    

                        <option value="Option A">Option A</option>
    

                        <option value="Option B">Option B</option>
    

                        <option value="Option C">Option C</option>
    

                        <option value="Option D">Option D</option>
    

                        <option value="Option E">Option E</option>
    

                    </select>
    

    <br />Input f: <input type="radio" name="inputf" id="inputf_a" value="Alpha" />Alpha <input type="radio" name="inputf" id="inputf_b" value="Bravo" />Bravo <input type="radio" name="inputf" id="inputf_c" value="Charlie" />Charlie 
    

    <br /><input type="button" name="submitBtn" id="submitBtn" value="DO IT" onclick="return saForm();" />
    

    <br /><textarea name="txtarea" id="txtarea" width="100%" height="200"></textarea>
    

    </form>

    The saForm() function is currently set to just iterate through the form elements by name retrieved from the server.

    function saForm(){
    

        var thisForm = $('#formthis').serializeArray(), thatForm = JSON.stringify(thisForm), frm = document.getElementById('formthis'), elems = frm.elements;
    

        frm.reset(); // Clear form data after submitting, for testing purposes.
    

        $.ajax({
    

            type: "POST",
    

            url: "doit.cfc?method=myFunction",
    

            data: {theData: thatForm}
    

            }).done(function(data){
    

                var datab = JSON.parse(data), j;// Turns JSON string into JS array-like object with keys (associative).
    

                for(var j in datab){
    

                    var frminpt = datab, $el = $("[name=" + frminpt.name + "]"), type = $el.attr('type'); alert(frminpt.name + " is a " + type);
    

                    }
    

                });
    

        }

    This is working fine, except for single and multiple SELECTs.  They alert as undefined.  Why?  I can't set the selected options if I can't identify the element as a SELECT.

    V/r,

    ^_^

    H
    haxtbh
    Inspiring
    January 22, 2016

    I would ask this at http://stackoverflow.com/, you will get a response a lot quicker by loads more people.

    WolfShade
    WolfShadeAuthor
    Legend
    January 22, 2016

    I once had an SO account for all of about four days.  I requested to have it deleted because SO (and all the associated sites/forums) is more of a popularity contest than an actual help/support forum.  There are more trolls and jerks who downvote just for the sake of downvoting than there are people who are serious about helping others.  Granted, there are some super-smart people who peruse SO; but they can often be overshadowed by class-a jerks.

    V/r,

    ^_^

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