How do I change the value of an input element?

Question

is it possible to "override/overwrite" an input element fixed value using javascript and/or jquery?

i.e. if i have an input element like this:

<div id="myDiv">
    <input type="text" name="inputs" value="someValue" />
</div>

is it possible to make a jquery object of that element and then change its value to something else then rewrite the jquery object to the dom?? I'm trying but obviously I haven't got good results!

I've been trying something like this:

$('input').val("someOtherDynamicValue");
var x = $('input');
$("#myDiv").html(x);

Answer 1

You can directly access the value via the $.val() method:

$("[name='inputs']").val("Foo"); // sets value to foo

Without needing to re-insert it into the DOM. Note the specificity of my selector [name='inputs'] which is necessary to modify only one input element on the page. If you use your selector input, it will modify all input elements on the page.

Online Demo: http://jsbin.com/imuzo3/edit

Answer 2

If you just want to manipulate the value of the input element, use the first line of your code. However it will change the value of every input element on the page, so be more specific using the name or the id of the element.

$('input[name=inputs]').val("someOtherDynamicValue");

Or if the element had an id

$('#someId').val('some Value');

Check out jQuery's selectors (http://api.jquery.com/category/selectors/) to see how to get whatever element you need to manipulate with jQuery.