Detect actual form change?

Question

Is there a ready-made way (maybe in one of the frameworks) to detect whether a form has changed compared to its original values?

The onchange event won't do, because it fires regardless of actual change (I could for example tick a checkbox on, and off again, with two onchange events).

The last resort would be to store each element's original value in a hidden field, and go through each one. If there is a faster method, I'd be happy to hear about it!

See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/598951/what-is-the-easiest-way-to-detect-if-at-least-one-field-has-been-changed-on-an-ht/598977#598977 — Crescent Fresh, Nov 24 '09 at 03:03

score 11 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 24 '09 at 03:05

11

I'm not aware of any DOM event that detects changes made to children/descendant elements' value attributes, but it should be enough to compare the serialized values before/after, $('form').serialize(). I apologize if you already knew about this method specifically, I'm assuming you're manually going through form elements and appending values to a string.

answered Nov 24 '09 at 03:05

meder omuraliev

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No, I didn't know/think about serializing. It's a great idea, thanks! – Pekka Nov 24 '09 at 03:11
It's a great solution. Too bad it doesn't work for complex forms with div's and fieldset-definitions.. – Tapper Jul 16 '12 at 17:16

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 10 '09 at 22:39

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I'm hunting for the same answer - here's the best potential solution I've come across (but haven't tried it yet): http://www.codingforums.com/showthread.php?t=29410&highlight=form+dirty

answered Dec 10 '09 at 22:39

powderflask

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Detect actual form change?

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