I have a form with about 20 input fields. I capture values of these fields, then do some calculations and output several values.
Is there a preferred/recommended way of capturing form data? Currently I store every form field into a separate variable. I was wondering if storing it to an array would be a better and more effective approach.
I'm quite new to Javascript and programming in general, trying to learn the best practices.
My best practice on this depends on what I have to do with the data. If I do not need to loop through it, or send it to another page/service, then there's nothing wrong with individual scoped-variables.
If I need to loop at all, I commonly use an array or object to loop through.
If I have to pass it to another page/service, I make one object variable to encapsulate the rest of them, so I can "stringify" it to JSON and parse back to an object on the other end.
Just my opinion,
Pete
You might consider the third approach - just use the data from the form without storing it anywhere.
First check the correctness, once it is considered correct just use what you have.
You should always assign the attribute "name=..." to an input element, so you can use something like:
var form = document.forms['form'];
var email = form['email'];
email = do something
if you use javascript... if you use jquery it's simple $('input[name="email"]') = do something
I prefer this way because you can call variables by name, not by number, for example "form[0] that corresponds to input[name="email"]".
Use the associative properties of arrays in JavaScript to get the benefits of unique field names and OOP:
var formModel = new Array();
formModel['myField'] = getMyFieldValue(); // make 'myField' index to any object
Then you can do things like:
formModel['myField'] // get the valueformModel.length; // number of fields addedfor (entry in formModel) { /* loop thru entries */ }formModel.sort([compareFunction]) // custom sortformModel = []; // clear the modelJust one approach, but arrays in JS are extremely versatile and IMO underused objects in JS.
