Send text into input field only if it's empty

Question

I have a portion of a form that "pops" out of it's normal place, and binds itself to the side of the viewport. When this happens, certain elements are hidden, leaving me with only the data that is immediately critical.

My problem is that I can't seem to get the copied data into only those cells with matching classes that DO NOT contain data.

I'm fairly certain the problem lies in my JS:

$('.spec-table-quote-button').click(function() {
    var toCopy = $(this).closest('tr').find('td:eq(1)').text();
    var copyInto = $(".part-number-input").val('');
    $(copyInto).val(toCopy);
    $('.add-field').click();
});

Here's a fiddle to see all the pieces: http://jsfiddle.net/UjPAk/

Any help is greatly appreciated. Many thanks in advance!

Joel Spadin · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-06 16:23:40Z

4

Replace

var copyInto = $(".part-number-input").val('')

with

var copyInto = $(".part-number-input").filter(function() { return $(this).val() == '' });

.val('') sets the value of all the matched things to an empty string. It doesn't filter the match list to elements whose values are an empty string.

answered Mar 6, 2014 at 16:23

Joel Spadin

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5 Comments

Todd Over a year ago

Gotcha. Barely stepping beyond the basics with JS/jquery. I will have to research how filter() works. Thanks again!

peterjmag Over a year ago

According to stackoverflow.com/a/1299468/349353, you could also do something like $('.part-number-input[value=""]') (instead of filter).

Joel Spadin Over a year ago

True. The filter method would allow you to be more flexible as to what constitutes "doesn't contain data" though. You could, for instance, check that the value is neither empty nor whitespace.

Todd Over a year ago

@peterjmag, I went down a lot of paths like that.. :text[value=""], etc., but none of those worked (update the fiddle, you'll see). I did have something that checked the length ( if (copyInto.length === 0) function()...), but that only worked to block any subsequent attempts to fill any cells with data. For other problems, I think you might be right, but for this particular case, probably because the targeting of the cell is based on class and not something as definitive as an ID, that solution does not work.

peterjmag Over a year ago

@twf1985: You're right, [value=""] doesn't actually work here. As it turns out, attribute selectors like that only work for attributes that are explicitly declared in the HTML (not those dynamically created or modified by JS). Check out jsfiddle.net/peterjmag/fud8p for a quick demo. (This is true of both jQuery and CSS, so $('input[value="something"]') will target the same elements as input[value="something"] {}.)

Tushar Gupta - curioustushar · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-06 16:14:51Z

2

Use

var copyInto = $(".part-number-input");
copyInto.val(toCopy);

instead of

var copyInto = $(".part-number-input").val('');
$(copyInto).val(toCopy);

I think code is self explanatory.

edited Mar 6, 2014 at 16:14

Tushar Gupta - curioustushar

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answered Mar 6, 2014 at 16:09

Satpal

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2 Comments

Matthew Wilcoxson Over a year ago

These two sets of lines are doing the same thing (other than the second empties the "into" first). The first is simply more efficient.

Todd Over a year ago

Tried it in the fiddle, doesn't work. Repeats the same problem of inputting the data into all of the elements with the appropriate class. Thanks for trying.

knightsb · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-06 16:18:04Z

0

try :

$('.spec-table-quote-button').click(function() {
    var toCopy = $(this).closest('tr').find('td:eq(1)').text();
    $(".part-number-input").val(toCopy);
    $('.add-field').click();
});

answered Mar 6, 2014 at 16:18

knightsb

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1 Comment

Todd Over a year ago

This will input data into the cell, but doesn't check to make sure the cell is empty first. With each added field, any newly chosen value to send over gets replicated in each input field in the series with matching class. Thank you for trying.

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