Unable to set data attribute using jQuery Data API

Question

I ve got the following field on an MVC view    Html TextBoxFor model   gt  model Course Title  new   data helptext    Old Text     lt  span gt    In a seperate js file  I want to set the data-helptext attribute to a string value  Here s my code   alert   targetField  data  helptext        targetField  data  helptext    Testing 123      The alert   call works fine  it shows the text  Old Text  in an alert dialog  However  the call to set the data-helptext attribute to  Testing 123  does not work   Old Text  is still the attribute s current value   Am I using the call to data   incorrectly  I ve looked this up on the web  and I can t see what I m doing wrong   Here s the HTML markup    lt input data-helptext  Old Text  id  Course Title  name  Course Title  type  text  value      gt

User · Answer

andyb s accepted answer has a small bug   Further to my comment on his post above     For this HTML    lt div id  foo  data-helptext  bar  gt  lt  div gt   lt a href     id  changeData  gt change data value lt  a gt    You need to access the attribute like this       foo   attr  data-helptext    Testing 123      but the data method like this       foo   data  helptext    Testing 123      The fix above for the  data   method will prevent  undefined  and the data value will be updated  while the HTML will not   The point of the  data  attribute is to bind  or  link   a value with the element  Very similar to the onclick  alert  do something    attribute  which binds an action to the element    the text is useless you just want the action to work when they click the element   Once the data or action is bound to the element  there is usually  no need to update the HTML  only the data or method  since that is what your application  JavaScript  would use   Performance wise  I don t see why you would want to also update the HTML anyway  no one sees the html attribute  except in Firebug or other consoles    One way you might want to think about it  The HTML  along with attributes  are just text   The data  functions  objects  etc that are used by JavaScript exist on a separate plane  Only when JavaScript is instructed to do so  it will read or update the HTML text  but all the data and functionality you create with JavaScript are acting completely separate from the HTML text attributes you see in your Firebug  or other  console    I put emphasis on usually because if you have a case where you need to preserve and export HTML  e g  some kind of micro format data aware text editor  where the HTML will load fresh on another page  then maybe you need the HTML updated too

User · Answer

I was having serious problems with   data  property   value     It was not setting the data-property attribute   Started using jQuery s  attr        Get the value of an attribute for the first element in the set of   matched elements or set one or more attributes for every matched   element     attr  property   value    to set the value and   attr  property     to retrieve the value   Now it just works

User · Answer

To quote a quote      The data- attributes are pulled in the first time the data property is   accessed and then are no longer accessed or mutated  all data values   are then stored internally in jQuery      data   - jQuery Documentiation  Note that this  Frankly odd  limitation is only withheld to the use of  data     The solution  Use  attr instead   Of course  several of you may feel uncomfortable with not using it s dedicated method  Consider the following scenario    The  standard  is updated so that the data- portion of custom attributes is no longer required is replaced   Common sense - Why would they change an already established attribute like that  Just imagine class begin renamed to group and id to identifier  The Internet would break   And even then  Javascript itself has the ability to fix this - And of course  despite it s infamous incompatibility with HTML  REGEX  And a variety of similar methods  could rapidly rename your attributes to this new-mythical  standard    TL DR  alert   targetField  attr  data-helptext

User · Answer

It is mentioned in the  data   documentation     The data- attributes are pulled in the first time the data property is accessed and then are no longer accessed or mutated  all data values are then stored internally in jQuery    This was also covered on Why don  39 t changes to jQuery   fn data   update the corresponding html 5 data-  attributes   The demo on my original answer below doesn t seem to work any more   Updated answer  Again  from the  data   documentation     The treatment of attributes with embedded dashes was changed in jQuery 1 6 to conform to the W3C HTML5 specification    So for  lt div data-role  page  gt  lt  div gt  the following is true    div   data  role        page   I m fairly sure that    div   data  data-role   worked in the past but that doesn t seem to be the case any more  I ve created a better showcase which logs to HTML rather than having to open up the Console and added an additional example of the multi-hyphen to camelCase data- attributes conversion   Updated demo  2015-07-25   Also see jQuery Data vs Attr   HTML   lt div id  changeMe  data-key  luke  data-another-key  vader  gt  lt  div gt   lt a href     id  changeData  gt  lt  a gt   lt table id  log  gt       lt tr gt  lt th gt Setter lt  th gt  lt th gt Getter lt  th gt  lt th gt Result of calling getter lt  th gt  lt th gt Notes lt  th gt  lt  tr gt   lt  table gt    JavaScript  jQuery 1 6 2    var  changeMe       changeMe    var  log       log     var logger   logger   function setter  getter  note        note   note            eval   changeMe    setter       var result   eval   changeMe    getter        log append   lt tr gt  lt td gt  lt code gt     setter     lt  code gt  lt  td gt  lt td gt  lt code gt     getter     lt  code gt  lt  td gt  lt td gt     result     lt  td gt  lt td gt     note     lt  td gt  lt  tr gt              data  key      Initial value         changeData   click function            set data-key to new value     logger   data  key    leia       data  key      expect leia on jQuery node object but DOM stays as luke           try and set data-key via  attr and get via some methods     logger   attr  data-key    yoda       data  key      expect leia  still  on jQuery object but DOM now yoda        logger       attr  key      expect undefined  no attr  lt code gt key lt  code gt          logger       attr  data-key      expect yoda in DOM and on jQuery object            bonus points     logger       data  data-key      expect undefined  cannot get via this method         logger   data  anotherKey       data  anotherKey      jQuery 1 6  get multi hyphen  lt code gt data-another-key lt  code gt         logger   data  another-key       data  another-key      jQuery  lt  1 6 get multi hyphen  lt code gt data-another-key lt  code gt   also supported in jQuery 1 6           return false           changeData   click        Older demo    Original answer  For this HTML    lt div id  foo  data-helptext  bar  gt  lt  div gt   lt a href     id  changeData  gt change data value lt  a gt    and this JavaScript  with jQuery 1 6 2   console log     foo   data  helptext          changeData   click function             foo   data  helptext    Testing 123            foo   attr  data-helptext    Testing 123        console log     foo   data  data-helptext         return false        See demo  Using the Chrome DevTools Console to inspect the DOM  the     foo   data  helptext    Testing 123    does not update the value as seen in the Console but     foo   attr  data-helptext    Testing 123    does

User · Answer

Happened the same to me  It turns out that   var data       myObject   data      gives you a non-writable object  I solved it using   var data     extend         myObject   data       And from then on  data was a standard  writable JS object

User · Answer

As mentioned  the  data   method won t actually set the value of the data- attribute  nor will it read updated values if the data- attribute changes   My solution was to extend jQuery with a  realData   method that actually corresponds to the current value of the attribute      Alternative to  data   that updates data- attributes  and reads their current value   function         fn realData   function name value          if  value     undefined            return   this  attr  data-  name           else             this  attr  data-  name value                   jQuery     NOTE  Sure you could just use  attr    but from my experience  most developers  aka me  make the mistake of viewing  attr   and  data   as interchangeable  and often substitute one for the other without thinking  It might work most of the time  but it s a great way to introduce bugs  especially when dealing with any sort of dynamic data binding  So by using  realData    I can be more explicit about the intended behavior

User · Answer

Had the same problem  Since you can still get data using the  data   method  you only have to figure out a way to write to the elements   This is the helper method I use   Like most people have said  you will have to use  attr   I have it replacing any   with - as I know it does that   I m not aware of any other characters it replaces   however I have not researched that     function ExtendElementData element  object         element is what you want to set data on       object is a hash js-object     var keys   Object keys object       for  var i   0  i  lt  keys length  i             var key   keys i             element  attr  data-  key replace       -    object key              EDIT  5 1 2017  I found there were still instances where you could not get the correct data using built in methods so what I use now is as follows   function setDomData element  object         object is a hash      var keys   Object keys object       for  var i   0  i  lt  keys length  i             var key   keys i             element  attr  data-  key replace       -    object key              function getDomData element  key       var domObject     element  get 0       var attKeys   Object keys domObject attributes        var values   null      if  key    null           values     element  attr  data-    key         else           values                var keys               for  var i   0  i  lt  attKeys length  i                  keys push domObject attributes attKeys i                        for  var i   0  i  lt  keys length  i                 if  keys i  match  data-                       values keys i       element  attr keys i                                      return values

[jquery] Unable to set data attribute using jQuery Data() API

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