form-to-obj

Tiny, zero-dependency, utility to turn a form into a JavaScript object.

• Zero dependencies
• Roughly 600 bytes minified and gzipped
• Handles arrays and nested objects
• Handles contenteditable

Basic usage

A form such as this:

<form>
  <input name="username" value="John">
  <input name="address.street" value="123 Somewhere">
  <input name="address.city" value="Durham,NC">
  <input name="gender" type="radio" value="m" checked>
  <input name="gender" type="radio" value="f">
  <input name="favorites[]" type="checkbox" value="chocolate" checked>
  <input name="favorites[]" type="checkbox" value="strawberry">
  <input name="favorites[]" type="checkbox" value="vanilla" checked>
</form>

When called like this:

var obj = formToObj(document.querySelector('form'));

Would produce an obj value of this:

{
  username: 'John',
  address: {
    street: '123 Somewhere',
    city: 'Durham,NC'
  },
  gender: 'm',
  favorites: ['chocolate', 'vanilla']
}

Nested arrays and objects

This form:

<form>
  <input name="user[4].name" value="John">
  <input name="user[4].phone" value="1231231234">
  <input name="user[78].name" value="Sally">
  <input name="user[78].phone" value="7778887777">
  <input name="user[10].name" value="Jane">
  <input name="user[10].phone" value="1001001000">
</form>

When serialized, would produce an object like this:

{
  user: [
    { name: 'John', phone: '1231231234' },
    { name: 'Jane', phone: '1001001000' },
    { name: 'Sally', phone: '7778887777' }
  ]
}

The sort order is not guaranteed, and the indices don't matter, except as a unique way of identifying a record.

Contenteditable support

If using a contenteditable item, give it a data-name attribute in order to take its innerHTML value.

This markup:

<div contenteditable="true" data-name="whatevz"><span>Hi</span></div>

Would produce an object like this:

{
  whatevz: '<span>Hi</span>'
}

Browserify

This library is CommonJS compatible, so you can use it in this way:

var formToObj = require('form-to-obj'),
var obj = formToObj(document.querySelector('form'));

Installation

Just download form-to-obj.min.js, or use bower:

bower install form-to-obj

Or use npm: https://www.npmjs.com/package/form-to-obj

npm install --save form-to-obj

Contributing

Make your changes (and add tests), then run the tests:

npm test

If all is well, build your changes:

npm run min

License MIT

Copyright (c) 2015 Chris Davies

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.