Question

How do I get this done. I am trying to append text to a text area. If some value already exists then append. I had it working but seems like it cannot work in all browsers. Is there a better way to do this?

Tried both ways, they don’t work in Chrome, IE and FF –

if ($('#log').value == undefined) {
$('#log').val("First: " + result[0]);
} else {
$('#log').val($('#log').value += "Second: " + result[0]);
}

if ($('#log').value == undefined) {
$('#log').val("First: " + result[0]);
} else {
$('#log').val(log.value += "Second: " + result[0]);
}

Without If, this works in Chrome but not in IE and FF –

$('#log').val(log.value += "First: + result[0]);

Answer 1

jQuery objects don’t have a .value property, so $('#log').value will always be undefined. This means that your statement will always call $('#log').val("First: " + result[0]); and never call the second one.

You need to check if($('#log').val() == '') instead.

As for .val(), you can pass a function. This function will be passed the current value of the input.

if ($('#log').val() == '') {
    $('#log').val("First: " + result[0]);
} else {
    $('#log').val(function(i, v){ // v is the current value
        return v + "Second: " + result[0];  // what's returned is what the value will be set to
    });
}