$("input:not(:empty)") is not working

Question

<html>
<head>
<script type="text/javascript" src="jquery-1.7.1.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function(){
  $("button").click(function(){
    alert('hi'+$("input:text").val());
    $("input:not(:empty)").val("sdfdf");
  });
});
</script>
</head>
<body>
<input type="text" value="aa" />
<input type="text" value="" />
<input type="text" value="aa" />
<button>Click me</button>
</body>
</html>

i am trying to access empty textboxex using jquery and assigning a value hello to it.. but it's not working .

thanks in advance

read http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1299424/selecting-empty-text-input-using-jquery — Dau, Feb 07 '12 at 09:11

score 30 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 07 '12 at 09:12

30

:empty checks for whether an element has child elements. input elements cannot have child elements.

If you want to test that the input element's value is blank:

$(document).ready(function(){
  $("button").click(function(){
    $("input").filter(function() {
        return this.value.length !== 0;
    }).val("sdfdf");
  });
});

There we get all of the input elements, and then filter it so only the ones whose value property isn't "" are included.

answered Feb 07 '12 at 09:12

T.J. Crowder

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3

This is the right way to do it. A selector like `input[type=text][value='']` probably isn't correct for this case because it only considers the initial value attribute and ignores characters entered by the user. – Dave Methvin Feb 07 '12 at 13:53

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 07 '12 at 09:15

5

You could use another selector for your task:

$("input[value='']").val("sdfdf");

answered Feb 07 '12 at 09:15

Candide

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Note that this selects based on the HTML attribute initial value; not the DOM property. Therefore if the user changes the value, this selector will not pick it up. [More on the difference between attributes and properties](http://api.jquery.com/attr/) – David Cook Feb 08 '16 at 23:22

score 4 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:46

4

jQuery(':empty') Description: Select all elements that have no children (including text nodes).

From http://api.jquery.com/empty-selector/. Thus :empty does not do what you think it does.

Have a look at this answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/1299468/138023 for a solution.

edited May 23 '17 at 11:46

Community

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answered Feb 07 '12 at 09:12

Markus Hedlund

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 07 '12 at 09:16

0

You could use an .each with this inside:

if( $(this).val().length === 0 ) {
    $(this).parents('p').addClass('warning');
}

answered Feb 07 '12 at 09:16

mynameisnotallowed

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$("input:not(:empty)") is not working

4 Answers4