jquery form change

Question

Hello!

In jQuery, is there a simple way to test if ANY of a forms elements have changed?

EDIT: I should have added that I only need to check on a click() event.

EDIT: Sorry I really should have been more specific! Say I have a form. And I have a button with the following:

$('#mybutton').click(function() {
  //here is where is need to test.
  if( FORM has changed ) {
     do something
  }
});

how would I test if the form has changed since it was loaded?

Answer 1

$('form :input').change(function() {
    // Something has changed
});

Answer 2

First, I'd add a hidden input to your form to track the state of the form. Then, I'd use this jQuery snippet to set the value of the hidden input when something on the form changes:

    $("form")
    .find("input")
    .change(function(){
        if ($("#hdnFormChanged").val() == "no")
        {
            $("#hdnFormChanged").val("yes");
        }
    });

When your button is clicked, you can check the state of your hidden input:

$("#Button").click(function(){
    if($("#hdnFormChanged").val() == "yes")
    {
        // handler code here...
    }
});

Answer 3

Looking at the updated question try something like

$('input, textarea, select').each(function(){
    $(this).data("val", $(this).val());
});
$('#button').click(function() {
    $('input, textarea, select').each(function(){
        if($(this).data("val")!==$(this).val()) alert("CHANGED!1123%%32");
    });
});

For the original question use something like

$('input').change(function() {
    alert("Things have changed!");
});

Answer 4

You can use multiple selectors to attach a callback to the change event for any form element.

$("input, select").change(function(){
    // Something changed
});

EDIT

Since you mentioned you only need this for a click, you can simply modify my original code to this:

$("input, select").click(function(){
    // A form element was clicked
});

EDIT #2

Ok, you can set a global that is set once something has been changed like this:

var FORM_HAS_CHANGED = false;

$('#mybutton').click(function() {
    if (FORM_HAS_CHANGED) {
        // The form has changed
    }
});

$("input, select").change(function(){
    FORM_HAS_CHANGED = true;
});

Answer 5

You can do this:

$("form :input").change(function() {
  $(this).closest('form').data('changed', true);
});
$('#mybutton').click(function() {
  if($(this).closest('form').data('changed')) {
     //do something
  }
});

This rigs a change event handler to inputs in the form, if any of them change it uses .data() to set a changed value to true, then we just check for that value on the click, this assumes that #mybutton is inside the form (if not just replace $(this).closest('form') with $('#myForm')), but you could make it even more generic, like this:

$('.checkChangedbutton').click(function() {
  if($(this).closest('form').data('changed')) {
     //do something
  }
});

Answer 6

You need jQuery Form Observe plugin. That's what you are looking for.