Home/ Questions/Q 8414301
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-06-10T01:08:00+00:00

I’ve been developing my first website, and I’m having issues with a javascript validation

  • 0

I’ve been developing my first website, and I’m having issues with a javascript validation script. My code:

<html>
    <head>
      <title>Territory</title>
    </head>
    <body>

      <script type="text/javascript"> //Main Javascript function giving me issues
    function validate(form)
    {
      fail = validateTerrNum(document.checkOut.numberOut.value);
      fail += validateFirstName(document.checkOut.fName.value);
      fail += validateLastName(document.checkOut.lName.value);
      if (fail == "") 
    return true;
      else 
      {
        alert(fail);
        return false;
      }
    }
        </script>
        <script type="text/javascript>
        function validateTerrNumber(field)
        {
     if (field == "") return "No territory number was entered. \n";
     else if (field.length > 3)
    return "Territory numbers must be less than four characters. \n";
    else if (/[^0-9]/.test(field))
        return "Only 0-9 allowed in territory number. \n";
    return "";
        }

        //Note: Does not sanitize string
        function validateFirstName(field)
        {
     if (field == "") return "No first name was entered. \n";
     return "";
        }

        //Again, note that this function does not sanitize string
        function validateLastName(field)
        {
     if (field == "") return "Not last name was entered. \n";
     return "";
        }
        </script>

        <table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="5">
     <th colspan="2" align="center">Check Out</th>
      <form name="checkOut" method="post" onSubmit="validate(this)"> 
    <tr><td>Territory Number</td><td><input type="text" name="numberOut"     tabindex="1" maxlength="3" size="3" /></td>
                    </tr><tr><td>First Name of Holder</td><td><input type="text" name="fName" tabindex="2" maxlength="15"/></td>
                    </tr><tr><td>Last Name of Holder</td><td><input type="text" name="lName" tabindex="3" maxlength="15" /></td>
                    </tr><tr><td><input type ="checkbox" name="specialC" tabindex="4" value="Yes"/> Special Campaign</td>
                    </tr><tr><td></td><td><input type="submit" value="Check Out" /></td>
                </form>
            </table>
</body>
</html>

It is obviously poorly formatted – result of copy and paste. To be more specific, this issue is with the javascript validation. When I hit “Check Out,” the validation does not prevent it when I put in bad values. The script is quite simple, but for some reason I can’t figure out what is going on with it (I’m fairly new to javascript).

I know the issue is not my browser as I have many javascripts running throughout it. The only thing I can think of is that the form does not have a method. It will be another validation, but written in php – the javascript is really just a prevalidation for the client.

Any help would be appreciated.

-Mlagma

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    To stop the submit going ahead after validation fails you need:

    onSubmit="return validate(this)"

    instead of your current code:

    onSubmit="validate(this)"

    Your validate() function already returns true or false, but those values were not being returned from the event handler itself. If you think of the code between the quotes of onSubmit="" as the body of a function this makes sense.

    And, asTeemu pointed out, your validate() function tries to invoke a function called validateTerrNum when actually you’ve declared that function as validateTerrNumber.

    With these problems corrected you can see it working here: http://jsfiddle.net/nnnnnn/Wvcy3/

    • 0