[webkit-dev] What data structure is used to store multiple input controls sharing the same name?

Mon Mar 20 10:13:14 PST 2006

Hi,

What kind of data structure/object is used internally by Safari /  
Konqueror to store multiple inputs with the same name? Is it a  
NodeList as in IE/Firefox, or something different? Can properties be  
assigned to this object using Javascript?

Using the code below it looks like Firefox, IE and Safari create an  
HTMLInputElement the first time a control named _submit is encountered.
The second time a control named _submit is encountered, it seems that  
a data structure is created to hold the HTMLInputElements and these  
can then be accessed using array notation.

Firefox/IE report that this new structure is a Nodelist, but Safari  
only reports that it's an "object". When I try using toString() to  
get more information but then Safari reports an error that it's not  
an object.

Finally,
In Firefox/IE you can assign new properties to this new Nodelist as  
in _submit.foo = "bar" and you can retrieve their value.
In Safari (I'm using 2.0.3) doing so will fail silently and  
retrieving them will return "undefined".

The code I'm using to try to sort this out:

<html>
<form name="test_form" onsubmit="test(this);">	
	<input type="submit" name="_submit" value="One">
	<script>
	  alert("_submit is a " + document.forms[0]._submit);
	  alert("_submit's value is " + document.forms[0]._submit.value);
	</script>
	<input type="submit" name="_submit" value="Two">
	<script>
	  alert("_submit is now a " + document.forms[0]._submit);
	  alert("_submit's value is now " + document.forms[0]._submit.value);
	  alert("Assigning a value to _submit...");
	  document.forms[0]._submit.value = "New Value";
	  alert("_submit's value is now " + document.forms[0]._submit.value);
	  alert("The original _submit's value can still be reached as an  
item: " + document.forms[0]._submit[0].value);
	</script>
</form>
</html>

I've looked at the webkit source code but I'm not an expert at C++ so  
I am not quite sure where to find this information. I've also tried  
calling functions that should work on Nodelists and arrays on this  
object and they fail. The only property that seems to work is "length".

To recap, my question is: how does Safari store multiple input  
controls that share the same name? Can this object have its own  
properties (besides "length")?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide,

- marco