Dr J R Stockton said the following on 12/22/2006 8:45 AM:
In comp.lang.javascript message <
[email protected]>,
Dr J R Stockton said the following on 12/21/2006 10:36 AM:
In comp.lang.javascript message
<
[email protected]>, Wed, 20 Dec 2006 00:00:01,
FAQ Topic - How do I get the value of a form control?
In HTML documents, named forms may be referred to as named
properties of the ‹ document.forms › collection, and named form
controls may be referred to as named properties of the form's
elements collection:
var frm = document.forms["formname"];
var contrl = frm.elements["elementname"];
Status of document.formname & frm.elementname ?
Your question is vague when you ask about the status. Are you asking
what the status of the document.formname convention is? The FAQ code
uses bracket notation because it has fewer side effects than dot
notation. <form name="my-form"> doesn't work with dot notation. If
that isn't what you are asking, then I am not sure what you are asking.
I'm not asking anything. I'm suggesting that there should be a mention
of that convention and its applicability. Obviously it can only be
applicable where elementname's "spelling" is compatible; but it's not
obvious how widely it is usable. Those who use MSIE themselves may -
should - wish to know whether it is usable in near-enough all current
systems.
You have the ? at the end so you were asking something and I obviously
mis-understood what you were asking.
As for it being documented that document.formname & frm.elementname are
available, it is covered in the Notes page that is linked to from that
entry. And within the first page and a half of the Notes document it
says this:
/* The latter, bracket notation, does not impose the same restrictions
on the character sequence used for the name as is imposed by the
preceding dot notation, which is restricted to only using character
sequences that would fulfil the ECMAScript definition of an
identifier.
Bracket notation is often preferred when accessing form elements as
it helps to document itself by making it clear in the source code
which property names originate in the HTML rather than the DOM.
*/
Without putting that comment directly in the FAQ, I don't see how it
could be any more documented than it already is.
Their presence implies that they are necessary, which they are not.
In that scenario, no they are not necessary. But having the parentheses
as a matter of habit is a better practice than not having them ever will
be.
A faulty explanation is not improved by mere repetition.
Not accepting an explanation does not make it faulty. And repeatedly
quibbling about the same thing over and over again does no good.
For the record: I am not removing the parentheses from that code.
Disregard who *can* currently maintain the Notes - anyone can, if they
can persuade Jim to let them. The question is one of whether anyone -
and if so, who - is actually maintaining each Note.
<eyeroll> Repeating the same arguments over and over isn't going to
change my mind. Until someone else actively starts changing the Notes
pages, I have no choice but to believe that the only people capable of
(even if they aren't) maintaining them are Jim, Richard and myself. And
documenting that in the Notes pages is not going to happen any time soon
for the reasons I have already stated to you at least twice already.
And how do you expect a FAQ user to read that string? Anyway, d.lM is
the date of last upload; a maintainer should be able to silently correct
such as spelling mistakes without publicly showing that it is a new
"version".
I am not going to date and version the FAQ Notes pages. You can request
all you want to but I am not going to do it. It's a waste of time.
Using a few simple Batch tools, I see that there are only about 49
distinct sites cited. Many of those you will instantly recognise - W3,
merlyn, jibbering, oreilly, sun, wipo, mozilla, davidflanagan,
wikipedia, microsoft, galasoft, google, ietf, apple, ecma for example.
Yes, I recognize every one of them, but it isn't what I offered to do. I
am not going to review every one of them for a label to each link. After
10.x gets released, if you want to create a list of all the links with
possible labels, and it is feasible, I will be glad to incorporate it
into the document.
Default "you" is always the author of the previous article.
Then "you", in your statement, would be referring to FAQServer which has
*never* even come close to saying that. So, I assumed you were
referring to me but I am not the author of the previous article in this
thread that you replied to to make that statement.
I wrote ''Recently you wrote "9.4 contains" or similar.''. The Subject
of the article which you wrote and found was "FAQ 9.4 Updated" which is
semantically similar. Don't quibble.
You complain about me posting "9.4 contains" when I didn't even come
close to saying that. Rather than just admitting a mistake you accuse me
of quibbling about you making a blatantly false statement? You amaze me
sometimes.
<snipped section on file renaming>
File renaming on the jibbering.com server is very plain and simple. I am
not going to start renaming files simply because you think they need to
be renamed. It's not happening. You can reply back and post as many
times as you want to about it and it still won't change the fact that I
am not going to do it.
After all, it's illogical to suggest that no URL can be changed when the
document at that URL can be substantially rewritten. There is AFAIK no
advertised public interface to all previous versions of the FAQ.
That is very true and the email I got from Jim was directly related to
moving all the old FAQ files to the old folder (along with some other
files). The intentions, with 10.x, is to have a link to <URL:
http://jibbering.com/faq/old/> which is all of the old FAQ files
(AFAIK). The other files in the faq folder (mostly .asp/.html files) are
going to stay where they are.
Nevertheless, the FAQ is currently telling lies on the subject. You
only need to change "will currently" (always was semantically bad
anyway; "is currently") to "has been and may in future be".
<proposal>
The FAQ is currently posted one section daily for review, questions
and a reminder that the FAQ is available.
</proposal>
The wording needs to be changed some but it is a start. Thoughts?
I don't see the need to post all of Quick Answers twice a week nowadays;
it could be split into two similar-sized parts & posted separately.
That would be up to Bart and how easily it could be set up to do it. I
can produce the text versions easily enough though.
However, Bart provides a daily post with FAQ in its Subject and the FAQ
URL in its body, and everything in the FAQ appears in those posts. So
the weekly full-FAQ post is not so necessary now. (He does not put his
name in it, and I've forgotten which Bart he is. BVdD not BL I guess.)
Yes, it is Bart Van der Brock that does the daily postings.
There should be a semicolon added before EVERY occurrence of the
character "}", obviously before the preceding whitespace.
If you say it should be there, then by what specification do you base
that statement on? Unless there is some specification that says they
should be there - and that the W3C validator gets it wrong - then there
is nothing wrong with the faq.css file.
Also, faq.css should have, in comment, some identifying material.
Such as?
It currently has a comment at the beginning that identifies who wrote
the original. If RobG wants recognition then I will add it.
