> I know that it does what it says it does. That's not the point.
> The point is that it only works on the input element.
No, it will return the "value" attribute for any element. I think it would
have been clearer what was going on if .val() did not exist and people used
.attr("value") instead.
> I'm sorry, but I think that should be spelled out.
> Obviously a number of people thought it would retrieve the
> value of the selected option(s) in a select (or multiple select)
> box and that it would retrieve all text between the opening
> and closing textarea tags.
Agreed, that's one of my primary motivations for saying all the macro
properties should go. To save a few characters we've created a documention
burden and a much greater chance of misinterpretation. Plus, someone has to
implement all that special-case code if we really want it to work that way.
> What would be wrong with adding those? There's probably a
> perfectly good reason, I just don't know what it is.
We already have one, albeit with a longer name. Grab the form plugin and
take a look at formToArray. It returns all the useful values out of a form
as name/value pairs. Since .val() is form-related it seems like this would
be the appropriate home for something fancier than .attr("value) usage.
> The API also does not discuss here what this method
> returns if the input is a check box or radio button. Does
> it return that it is checked (like f.mycheckbox.checked)?
$("input:checkbox").val() will return the value of the checkbox whether it
is checked or not, since it is the same as
$("input:checkbox").attr("value"). In HTML the value attribute doesn't
change depending on whether the box is checked or not. You'd need to look at
$("input:checkbox").attr("checked") to determine that.
Again, I think this is just one more reason to abandon .val() because it is
much more confusing than .attr("value"); most people understand the concept
of getting the attribute of an element and it's not a jQuery-specific
concept.
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