jQuery Forum

I have a number of cases where I would like to use fieldSerialize() to select a subset of form fields, but it would be more useful to get an array of name value pairs (just like formToArray()) instead of a baked querystring. To make the API consistent, I propose adding fieldToArray() to complement formToArray().

This can be done by moving the guts of fieldSerialize() to fieldToArray(), and calling fieldToArray() from fieldSerialize().

Here's the code:

/**
 * Serializes all field elements in the jQuery object into a query string.
 * This method will return a string in the format: name1=value1&name2=value2
 */
$.fn.fieldSerialize = function(successful) {
    var a = this.fieldCollect(successful);

    //hand off to jQuery.param for proper encoding
    return $.param(a);
};

/**
 * Serializes all field elements in the jQuery object into an array of key/value pairs.
 */
$.fn.fieldToArray = function(successful)
{
    var a = [];
    this.each(function() {
        var n = this.name;
        if (!n) {
            return;
        }
        var v = $.fieldValue(this, successful);
        if (v && v.constructor == Array) {
            for (var i=0,max=v.length; i < max; i++) {
                a.push({name: n, value: v[i]});
            }
        }
        else if (v !== null && typeof v != 'undefined') {
            a.push({name: this.name, value: v});
        }
    });

    return a;
};

Is there an appetite for this kind of thing?