Question

Trying to do something if the input value contains a certain word but this doesn’t work:

   var formMain =  $('#MainForm :input[name="Search"]');
    if ((formMain).value.indexOf('word') >= 0) {
    alert('HAS THIS WORD IN IT!');

Example Form:

<form onsubmit="return OnSubmitSearchForm(event, this);" action="/searchresults.asp" id="MainForm" name="MainForm" method="post" class="search_results_section">
            <input type="hidden" value="word" name="Search">
            <input type="hidden" value="" name="Cat">
</form>

Answer 1

Your title mentions val() but you’re not actually using it. formMain is a jquery object and has no value, you should use val().

var formMain =  $('#MainForm :input[name="Search"]');
if (formMain.val().indexOf('word') >= 0) {
    alert('HAS THIS WORD IN IT!');
}

Also note that formMain is a misleading variable name as it is not the main form but rather a jquery object which contains the search input.