Question

I want to change the value of data-confirm attribute on a button (submit) based on user’s choices on a form. I put the following on the change function of a dropdown list:

...
    if($("#"+select_name).val() == "abc")
     {
         $(".variable_button").attr("data-confirm","abc is good choice!");

     } else
     {
         $(".variable_button").attr("data-confirm","abc would have been great but this is fine too...");
     }
...

The problem I am facing is that apparently data-confirm cannot be changed once it is assigned a non-empty string. I have it set to “” in the server code. And, it changes to one of the two messages shown above when the user first makes a selection on the dropdownlist. But if the user changes the selection one more time, the data-confirm message does not change. Is this per design or am I missing something?

Answer 1

Don’t use .attr(), use .data():

var newData = ($("#"+select_name).val() == "abc")
    ? "abc is good choice!"
    : "abc would have been great but this is fine too...";

$(".variable_button").data("confirm", newData);