Set hidden input’s name using visible input - and remove visible input’s name

[psorowka]

Say we have the following minimal form:

<form>
  <input type="date" name="the_date" />
  <input type="submit" />
</form>

Adding datepicker will extend this form like this:

<form>
  <input type="date" name="the_date" />
  <input type="hidden" name="the_date_submit" />
  <input type="submit" />
</form>

This forces the server-side to be kind of aware of pickadate. It also does not allow progressive enhancement. IMHO the form should be more like:

<form>
  <input type="date" name="display_the_date" />
  <input type="hidden" name="the_date" />
  <input type="submit" />
</form>

In order to not break current behavior, adding an option 'displaySuffix' and 'displayPrefix' would be an idea.

Also it would be cool when then suffix would respect array notation. In a rails app i usually have input names like:

<input type="date" name="reservation[date]" />

Appending the suffix like this:

<input type="date" name="reservation[date]_submit" /> 

breaks the form. Prefereable would be

<input type="date" name="reservation[date_submit]" /> 

Should I implement those features and drop in a pull-request?

[amsul]

@psorowka I like this idea of renaming the original input's name! Although I would probably reduce it down to one option that decides which input gets the prefix & suffix.

In regards to the array notation for rails, there's already a PR for it: #342

[psorowka]

After thinking a bit more about this, I now think we should go a step further: Just remove the name attribute from the display-input and attach it to the hidden input. No need for prefix/suffix then.
The human-friendly-formatted date usually doesnt need to be posted at all.

[amsul]

True..well now that you mentioned that, nothing really needs to be changed at all.

You can simply remove the hidden suffix and prefix by setting them to an empty string - thereby making both input fields use the same name. The last named value is what gets sent to the server, which will always be the hidden input since that appears after the visible input in the DOM.

[psorowka]

Although you are basically right and this is the way I am currently doing it already; this seems to be semantically wrong. Actually - as far as I know - both values will be send to the server, but usual servers will overwrite previous field-values if the same field-name occurs twice. So: yes, no urgent action needed. But from a semantical point of view I would prefer to remove the name= from the non-data-relevant input.

[amsul]

Sorry, you're right - both values are still sent, but yes servers usually do remedy duplicate names by resolving to the last value.

And yeah, you are right about it not being a totally appropriate solution to the issue. So I'm going to reopen and add an option to cut the input's name onto the hidden one instead.

I'd assume the expected behavior is that setting that option to true would essentially nullify the hidden prefix and suffix?

[psorowka]

yes cool, agreed on that

[javieracrich]

I have 2 date pickers (from and until). They are both required. I'm using the "required" html5 attribute for both display inputs but since the datepicker removed the 'name' attribute, the required validation only works in the first picker. not both. Is there any alternative for this scenario to work?

[harmdewit]

Nice solution, seems a better solution than the hidden prefixes/suffixes. Could this please become the default?

I can imagine this makes it harder to upgrade, but new people with ruby/rails seem to keep running into this issue because root problem is unclear, see also veracross/pickadate-rails#13 (comment)