angelsonearth Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 Dear friends (and the ultimate forum friends, Hartley Sans and, of course, the invincible Larry Ullman)! I was wondering why my elem.defaultValue code was pulling up a null value, I believe. I thought the elem.defaultValue would pull up the placeholder text for the HTML5 field. Is this not how it works? Here is my code for the placeholder text: <input type="email" name="email" id="email" placeholder="e.g. someone@server.com" required="required"> And here is my code for the defaultValue function HTML5FieldCheck(id2, regExpToPassOn, errorMessage2) { alert("We are in the HTML5FieldCheck, and the id is " + id2 + "and the regExpToPassOn is" + regExpToPassOn + "and the error message is " + errorMessage2); var elem = document.getElementById(id2); elemValue = elem.value; // defaultValue not recognized as a method elemDefault = elem.defaultValue; alert("The HTML5FieldCheck default value is " + elemDefault); if (elemValue === elemDefault) { alert("The HTML5FieldCheck showed that no entry was made"); addErrorMessage(id, "Please fill out mandatory field"); } else { alert("The HTML5FieldCheck showed that an entry was made"); regularExpressionMatchFunction(id2, regExpToPassOn, errorMessage2); }} Can anyone figure out why the defaultValue is registering as null? Thanks so much! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HartleySan Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 This should answer your question: http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/prop_text_defaultvalue.asp Short answer: defaultValue checks the value attribute, not the placeholder one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angelsonearth Posted January 2, 2015 Author Share Posted January 2, 2015 Thanks, HartleySan! I apologize for my novice programming skills, but it is definitely a relief to know that I don't need to work on this particular function any longer. It appears that placeholder text set in HTML5 doesn't have any bearings on either the default value or the value, which is good for a newby like me to know, for sure! Thanks very much again! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HartleySan Posted January 2, 2015 Share Posted January 2, 2015 Placeholder text is more to inform the user of the type of input they should provide than anything else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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