Why does the value attribute of a button have specified = false in IE?

Question

I have been looking for an elegant solution to converting a submit button to a button. In Internet Explorer you cannot simply change the type of an input. I couldn't change the attribute on a clone of the object either, so I thought I would manually duplicate it by creating a new object and then iterate through the attributes of the submit button to duplicate them. I am checking if the attribute is specified before setting it, but for some reason the value attribute reads as attrib.specified is false despite having a clear value. Why is this?

Answer 1

iirc IE will submit the text between the button tags, rather than its value attribute.

I believe a workaround is to burn down microsoft HQ.

You could use a hidden field, or a type=submit and add text to the button with an image.

What are you trying to achieve?

Answer 2

I want buttons () to submit when I don't have javascript turned on, and I want to execute javascript instead of submitting when javascript is turned on by way of changing the input type to prevent postbacks and to attach event handlers. I have considered replacing the buttons entirely but I would like to be as consistent as possible for the sake of styling, hence switching to button from a submit type, and I want to preserve everything else associated with the submit button, i.e. style, value etc. I would like to just do submitButton.type = 'button', but MSIE does not like this for some rather obscure reason. I hate wrestling with MSIE.