62

In the valdocs written this description:

.val() Returns: String, Number, Array

I tried to get a Number, but it seems to return string only, Is there something that I'm doing wrong?

$('#gdoron').val('1');

alert($('#gdoron').val() === '1'); // true 
alert(typeof $('#gdoron').val());  // string.

$('#gdoron').val(1);

alert($('#gdoron').val() === 1);  // false
alert(typeof $('#gdoron').val()); // string (not "number"!)
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<input type="text" id="gdoron" />

My question is: how can val() return number as the docs says? The question is not about how can I parse the string.

​

Community
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gdoron is supporting Monica
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5 Answers5

70

A text input's value attribute will always return a string. You need to parseInt the value to get an integer:

parseInt($('#myInput').val(), 10);
osahyoun
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30

Some HTML5 elements e.g. progress;

console.log(typeof $("#prog").val()); // number 
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<progress value="50" max="100" id="prog"></progress>
Quentin
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Alex K.
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  • Also see the [HTML5 draft](http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/#the-progress-element) (the return value is `double`). – Felix Kling Feb 10 '12 at 11:58
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    @gdoron: It says: *[...] form elements **such as** `input`, `select` and `textarea` [...]*. Now, I'm not a native English speaker, but it sounds to me that this is not meant to be an exhaustive list. – Felix Kling Feb 10 '12 at 12:01
  • Something weird: `alert($("#prog").val() === 50​)​;​​​​​​​​​​//false​​` and `alert($("#prog").val() === '50')​; //false​​​​​​​​​​​​`. **HOW?** – gdoron is supporting Monica Feb 10 '12 at 12:03
15

I've done a bit of quick peeking around, and I think I have an answer. If you look at the implementation of the val function you can see that if a so-called val-hook is in place, if the val-hook returns a number, that number will be returned as-is from the val function. I found this discussion which suggests that val-hooks are primarily used by plugins to create custom controls, such as sliders, etc., where the "natural" return value of val could be an integer. Hope this sheds a bit of light on your question.

Klaus Byskov Pedersen
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1

You could simply create a jquery plugin to use instead of val() that would do this. Here I create the function nval() to use instead of val() when fetching a elements value.

$.fn.nval = function() {
   return Number(this.val())
};

Then in your code just use the following to get the value as a number

$('#elementID').nval()
carcus88
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    While correct, it doesn't answer the (very old) question. – gdoron is supporting Monica Feb 01 '18 at 08:57
  • Sure thats true but its provides a way to do it thats safe. If you really want to do it just use a plugin that overrides val() like $.fn._val = jq.fn.val; $.fn.val = function(value) { if ( !arguments.length ) { var v = this._val(); if(!isNaN(+v)) { return Number(v); } return v; } else { return this._val(value); } }; – carcus88 Feb 02 '18 at 18:06
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    Dude, the question is not how to overcome a problem, simply trying to understand how jQuery itself can return a `Number` **as the doc says**. And you can see the accepted answer showing why they wrote it, `` for example returns a `Number` **natively!**. – gdoron is supporting Monica Feb 07 '18 at 11:37
1

Hmm. For all these in the console, jQuery $($0).val() and Javascript's $0.value return the string "3":

<input type='number' value='3'/>
<input type='text' value='3'/>
<input type='radio' value='3'/>
<input type='checkbox' value='3'/>

So I think the jQuery val() documentation could be clearer. I can't see how it would ever return a number value so I'd suggest using parseInt($($0).val()) or parseFloat($($0).val()).

MSC
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