Question

How can I check a group of hidden fields for their values and if there are dissimilarities in their values, I will return false. But empty values and “False” should be treated as equal. There are 3 possible values only, empty, True and False but I want to treat empty as False.

I want something like

var isTrue = true;

// is there a way to do this in jquery or similar to this?
var values = $("#group input:hidden").distinct().take(2);  
if(values.length == 2) {
    // only make it false if there is a true in the values.
    if(values[0] == 'True' || values[1] == 'True') {
        isTrue = false;
    }
}

output should be like

{values[0] = '', values[1] = 'False'} = true
{values[0] = 'True', values[1] = 'False'} = false
{values[0] = '', values[1] = 'True'} = false

Index in the index can be interchanged.

Answer 1

Try adding the following jQuery extension to your code.

(function( $ ){

    $.fn.haveSameValue = function() {

        var val = -1;
        var same = true;

        this.each(function() {
            var thisValue = ($(this).val()=="")?"False":$(this).val();
            if(val != thisValue && val != -1) {
                same = false;
                return false;
            }
            val = thisValue;
        });

        return same;
    };

})( jQuery );

Now you should be able to call $('your-selector-here').haveSameValue() which will return boolean true or false depending on if all the elements matched (by 'your-selector-here') have the same value or not.