Introduction

Example: http://form2js.googlecode.com/hg/example/test.html

It's highly recommended to use latest version from repository instead of archives in "Downloads" section.

If you have any questions/suggestions or find out something weird or illogical - feel free to post an issue.

Details

Structure of resulting object defined by "name" attribute of form fields. See examples below.

This is not serialization library. Library used in example for JSON serialization is http://www.json.org/js.html

All this library doing is collecting form data and putting it in javascript object (obviously you can get JSON/XML/etc string by serializing it, but it's not an only purpose).

Usage

Objects/nested objects

Structure of resulting object defined in "name" attribute, delimiter is "." (dot) by default, but can be changed.

<input type="text" name="person.name.first" value="John" />
<input type="text" name="person.name.last" value="Doe" />

becomes

{
 "person" :
 {
  "name" :
  {
   "first" : "John",
   "last" : "Doe"
  }
 }
}

Arrays

Several fields with the same name with brackets defines array of values.

<label><input type="checkbox" name="person.favFood[]" value="steak" checked="checked" /> Steak</label>
<label><input type="checkbox" name="person.favFood[]" value="pizza"/> Pizza</label>
<label><input type="checkbox" name="person.favFood[]" value="chicken" checked="checked" /> Chicken</label>

becomes

{
 "person" :
 {
  "favFood" : [ "steak", "chicken" ]
 }
}

Arrays of objects/nested objects

Same index means same item in resulting array. Index doesn't specify order (order of appearance in document will be used).

<dl>
 <dt>Give us your five friends' names and emails</dt>
  <dd>
   <label>Email <input type="text" name="person.friends[0].email" value="agent.smith@example.com" /></label>
   <label>Name <input type="text" name="person.friends[0].name" value="Smith Agent"/></label>
  </dd>
  <dd>
   <label>Email <input type="text" name="person.friends[1].email" value="n3o@example.com" /></label>
   <label>Name <input type="text" name="person.friends[1].name" value="Thomas A. Anderson" /></label>
  </dd>
 </dt>
</dl>

becomes

{
 "person" :
 {
  "friends" : [
   { "email" : "agent.smith@example.com", "name" : "Smith Agent" },
   { "email" : "n3o@example.com", "name" : "Thomas A. Anderson" }
  ]
 }
}

Why not to use jQuery .serializeArray() and similar functions in other frameworks instead?

.serializeArray() works a bit different. It makes such structure from #Arrays_of_objects/nested_objects example:

[
 { "person.friends[0].email" : "agent.smith@example.com" },
 { "person.friends[0].name" : "Smith Agent" },
 { "person.friends[1].email" : "n3o@example.com" },
 { "person.friends[1].name" : "Thomas A. Anderson" }
]