[Resolved] a href "name" attribute

perpetualshaun

Does anyone know of a way to read the name attribute from an <a href> tag? I'm using javascript to submit a form from the anchor tag, and I'd also like to pass / read the variable from the link.

Here's what I'm trying to do...

<a name="change_cart_contents" id="change_cart_contents" href="javascript:document.address_form.submit();" class="button">change cart contents</a>

So when I pass the form back to the page, how can I check for the change_cart_contents variable?

Thanks,

Shaun

biggus

since the javascript call won't pick up the name or id of the link clicked, you'd have to change your code to something similar and have a javascript function handle the submit and the link name bits:

<a name="change_cart_contents" id="change_cart_contents" href="#" onClick="submitAddressForm(document.address_form,this.name);" class="button">change cart contents</a> 

<script language="JavaScript">
function submitAddressForm(addressForm,linkName){
//do something with the name of the link
alert(linkName)
addressForm.submit()
}
</script>

or
since onClick happens first (before the page will go to the href target. Try it with onClick='return false'), you could have it set a form field to hold that value before the form get submitted with:

onClick="document.address_form.linkName.value=this.name"

and keep your href=javascript:... bit as you currently have it.

wilsonodk

Sure. You use the DOM object Element, like this...

function getMyName(element) {
  if (element.hasAttribute('name')) {
    // element has the attribute your looking for
    alert(element.getAttribute('name'));
  }
}

Then use it like this...

<p><a href="#" onclick="getMyName(this);" name='foo'>My name is foo</a>

perpetualshaun

Hmm... I think biggues' solution may work. I hadn't thought of making the submit a function like that and trying to call that in the "onClick". Here's what I came up w/ for the ahreg tag:

And then my JavaScript function...

function submitAddressForm(){
document.address_form.submit();
}

I figured this would be the easier method, instead of worrying about what do do w/ the name or id attibute in the anchor tag anyway. But sadly, this doesn't work. Any thoughts?

wilsonodk

Not really sure what you're trying to do, but it looks like you're trying to submit the form for processing on the same page. With that assumption, here's a solution that works.

JavaScript Function:

function submitAddressForm() {
  document.addressForm.submit();
}

Link:

<form name="addressForm" id="addressForm" method="post" action="?continue_checkout=on">
  <a href="javascript:;" onclick="submitAddressForm();" class="button">...</a>

The submit method is exactly the same as using an input submit tag. So, your page will be sent to the value of the action attribute of the form tag. Putting an actual value in the href attribute will make it not work. Stick with either # or javascript:;.

btw, you'll need to remove the space in javascript and make it one word. 🙂