The setAttribute Method

The setAttribute method sets the value of a specified attribute. You invoke this method on an element, passing it the name of an attribute, a new value for the attribute, and an optional case argument, which, if true, makes the browser search for the attribute in a case-sensitive way. You can see the support for this method in Table 6.48.

Table 6.48. The setAttribute Method

Method	NS2	NS6	IE4	IE5	IE5.5	IE6
`setAttribute(` `attribute` `,` `value` `[,` `case` `])`
		x	x	x	x	x
	No return value

Here's an example that sets the VALUE attribute of a text field, which inserts text into that text field:

(Listing 06-11.html on the web site)

 <HTML>      <HEAD>          <TITLE>Using the setAttribute Method</TITLE>          <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">              <!--  function setAttr()   {   document.form1.text1.setAttribute("VALUE", "Hello there!")   }  // -->          </SCRIPT>      </HEAD>      <BODY>          <H1>Using the setAttribute Method</H1>          <FORM NAME="form1">              <INPUT TYPE="TEXT" ID="text1" SIZE="50"></INPUT>              <BR>              <INPUT TYPE="BUTTON" ONCLICK="setAttr()" VALUE="Set Attribute"></INPUT>          </FORM>      </BODY>  </HTML>

You can see the results in Figure 6.7, where we've inserted Hello there! into a text field.

Figure 6.7. Using the `setAttribute` Method.

graphics/06fig07.gif

The setAttribute Method