'On' or 'True' - which is it? Oct27 '05

I always find it slightly difficult to go from one programming language, to another.

For example, PHP and ASP can do pretty much the same thing, but both have vastly different syntax.

The same goes for JavaScript. The syntax is a bit different, than PHP - so I typically struggle to remember the proper syntax for certain things.

One example that came up recently involves HTML checkboxes. A typical checkbox element looks something like this:

<input type="checkbox" name="mycheckbox" id="mycheckbox" checked="checked" />

When a form, with this element, is submitted - both JavaScript and PHP return a different value, depending on whether or not the checkbox was checked.

JavaScript returns true, if the box was checked, or false if the box was not checked.

PHP, however, returns on, if the box was checked, and empty string (''), if the box was not checked.

Maybe this information will help someone out. I was stuck on it for a while - testing for PHP returning true, and never getting anything executed. It wasn’t until I realized it was returning true (in the normal sense of the word), but the actual output was on, instead of true.

Categories: JavaScript , PHP

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I'm a little unsure what you mean about Javascript returning true for a checkbox... do you mean if you're testing input.checked? You're not reall ... Read more.

Sorry... yes, I am referring to the value of input.checked. Good points - yes, if you have more than one chec ... Read more.

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