How to get button value using Javascript

Question

I am trying to figure out how to get the value of a button using JavaScript. There are several buttons generated using a while statement in php code, so the name and id are the same for all of them. The only difference between them is the value.

Part of my php code:

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
     {
     echo "<tr>";
     echo "<td align=\"center\"><input type=\"button\" id=\"details\" name=\"details\" value=\"" . $row['mcn'] . "\" onClick=\"MCNdetails()\"></td>";
     echo "</tr>";
     }

What I'm trying to achieve is that when this button is clicked a JavaScript alert is displayed with this records details.

(FYI - "Faker" is the form name that this table is a part of.)

My JavaScript code:

function MCNdetails()
        {

        var buttonDetails = document.Faker.details;
        var buttonValue = buttonDetails.value;

        if (buttonValue === "2700-2057" )
            {
            alert ("Details are here");
            return;
            }
        else
            {
            alert ("No Dice " + buttonValue);
            return;
            }

        }

I have approx. 300 records so far. When I click on ANY of the buttons I always get the else statement. I did try getting the element by id like this:

function MCNdetails()
        {

        var buttonDetails = document.getElementById("details");
        var buttonValue = buttonDetails.value;

        if (buttonValue === "2700-2057" )
            {
            alert ("Details are here");
            return;
            }
        else
            {
            alert ("No Dice " + buttonValue);
            return;
            }

        }

But that would always return the value of the first button regardless of which one I clicked.

I have done some Google searching as well as searching this site and I can't find this same scenario where the buttons are generated.

Any help or pointers would be appreciated. Thank you for your time :)

Answer 1

try something like

<script type="text/javascript">
  function getVal(value)
  {

   alert(value);
  }
 </script>
 <input type="button" value="Add" onclick="getVal(this.value)">

Answer 2

Note that using the same id for more than one element is invalid html, though most (all?) browsers tend not to make a fuss about it and they'll still display the page quite happily. That's why when you tried to use document.getElementById("details") it always gave you the first button with that id - how would the browser know which one you meant?

Having said that, if you pass this in the function call on click:

onClick=\"MCNdetails(this)\"

...that will give the function a direct reference to the particular button that was clicked. So then:

function MCNdetails(btn) {
    var buttonValue = btn.value;

    // etc
}

In which case your buttons don't really need ids at all. But if you do keep the ids you should find a way to make them unique (e.g., append a sequence number to the end of each).