Coding with Jesse

Setting a form field to null or undefined

I came across another browser difference while debugging some JavaScript. Let's say you were trying to set the value of a form field the following way:

document.getElementById('formField').value = someFunction();

But, it just so happens that someFunction() returns null. What happens when you set a form field value to null? Well, in Firefox and Safari, the value will be set to the empty string, "". Internet Explorer and Opera will set the field to the string "null".

Similarly, if the function forgot to return a value, the form field would get set to "undefined" (this is the same in every browser).

The moral of the story is, be careful not to let a form field value get set to null. You could avoid both these situations by doing something like:

document.getElementById('formField').value = someFunction() || "";

Note: This would actually replace undefined and null as well as 0 and false with "".

Published on April 4th, 2006. © Jesse Skinner

About the author

Jesse Skinner

I'm Jesse Skinner. I'm a self-employed web developer. I love writing code, and writing about writing code. Sometimes I make videos too. Feel free to email me if you have any questions or comments, or just want to share your story or something you're excited about.