Uncaught TypeError: Cannot set property 'value

Question

I'm trying to pass the entered text to the controller using an ajax request. But i'm getting athe error "Uncaught TypeError: Cannot set property 'value' of null " when I tried to execute JS file..

Here is the HTMLcode:

<form action="">
    <input type="text" class="searchbox1" name="search" placeholder="Search for Brand, Store or an Item..." value="text" />
    <input type="button" class="searchbox_submit1" name="submit" value="text" onClick="javascript:getSearchText();">
</form>

Here is the JS code:

function getSearchText() {
    var searchText = document.getElementByName("search").value;
    h_url=document.getElementById("u").value;
    var theURL = h_url+'search_all/' + deptid + '/' + searchText + '/1';
    $.ajax({
        url : theURL,
        fail: function(){
        },
        success : function() {
        },
        error:function(){
        }
    });
}

Please help me to fix this.

Answer 1

The problem is that you haven't got any element with the id u so that you are calling something that doesn't exist.
To fix that you have to add an id to the element.

<input id="u" type="text" class="searchbox1" name="search" placeholder="Search for Brand, Store or an Item..." value="text" />

And I've seen too you have added a value for the input, so it means the input is not empty and it will contain text. As result placeholder won't be displayed.

Finally there is a warning that W3Validator will say because of the "/" in the end. :

For the current document, the validator interprets strings like according to legacy rules that break the expectations of most authors and thus cause confusing warnings and error messages from the validator. This interpretation is triggered by HTML 4 documents or other SGML-based HTML documents. To avoid the messages, simply remove the "/" character in such contexts. NB: If you expect <FOO /> to be interpreted as an XML-compatible "self-closing" tag, then you need to use XHTML or HTML5.

In conclusion it says you have to remove the slash. Simply write this:

<input id="u" type="text" class="searchbox1" name="search" placeholder="Search for Brand, Store or an Item...">

Answer 2

I knew that i am too late for this answer, but i hope this will help to other who are facing and who will face.

As you have written h_url is global var like var = h_url; so you can use that variable anywhere in your file.

• h_url=document.getElementById("u").value; Here h_url contain value of your search box text value whatever user has typed.

• document.getElementById("u"); This is the identifier of your form field with some specific ID.

• Your Search Field without id

  <input type="text" class="searchbox1" name="search" placeholder="Search for Brand, Store or an Item..." value="text" />

• Alter Search Field with id

  <input id="u" type="text" class="searchbox1" name="search" placeholder="Search for Brand, Store or an Item..." value="text" />

• When you click on submit that will try to fetch value from document.getElementById("u").value; which is syntactically right but you haven't define id so that will return null.

• So, Just make sure while you use form fields first define that ID and do other task letter.

I hope this helps you and never get Cannot set property 'value' of null Error.