Consider this scenario: You are told to create a small program that must contain a screen with an email field. If a user populates the email field with something other than a valid email address, an error will be displayed. Otherwise, some program should be called.

How would you solve this task? Load SEU with an empty member and then start coding? Of course not. You would copy a program that most closely suits your needs and then modify it.

The same thing applies when you need some JavaScript code to solve a given task. Let's consider this task of creating a form that holds an email field. Before sending off the data to your server, the email should be validated and converted to lowercase. You could of course let the CGI program do the task, but why not add some JavaScript that would do the job?

"Yes," you say, "but how do I find the correct code? I'm not a JavaScript programmer, and I'm not very good at all this funny-looking code."

Well, here's how I did it. I fired up Google, and in the search field, I wrote "javascript validate email dynamic drive." I wrote "dynamic drive" because I know that this Web site holds a lot of good, useful examples.

My search revealed this simple script:

The HTML Form

Here is how my HTML form looks. This is where we'll incorporate the script.

Please enter your information and click submit
Email

In the email validation example, this script is placed in the section, so that's where I'll add it.

Now I have this:











Next, I'll add an event to the Submit button that calls the JavaScript function when clicked. It will look like this:



Now I only need to add some code so that the letters will be converted to lowercase as I type.

If you look at the second example I found, you'll see the following line:

onChange="javascript:this.value=this.value.toLowerCase();"

That should to the trick, except the onChange event is not really what I want. So what about the onKeyUp event? I'll add that to the input field:



Now the complete document looks like this:

Please enter your information and click submit
Email

You can see it in action here.

This completes the first of a series of TechTips about how to find the correct script and change it a bit to suit your needs.

To keep you on your toes, the example I provided has a weakness, and I'm looking forward to seeing you find it. See you in the forums!

Jan Jorgensen is one of the founders of Flexware.dk, which specializes in i5 Web solutions. He works with RPG, HTML, JavaScript, Perl, and PHP. You can reach him at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. (He is still working hard to get the flexware.dk Web site up and running.)

Jan Jorgensen is one of the owners of www.reeft.dk, which specializes in mobile and i5 solutions. He works with RPG, HTML, JavaScript, Perl, and PHP. You can reach him at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..