ASP help. Setting variables within an <a> tag

**TravisS** · 03-27-2003

OK, here's the thing. I have a variable named sTXT that I need to be able to set using a standard <a href> tag. The user should be able to click the link, and the sTXT variable will be changed to whatever value I have hard coded in for that link.

For example, if I have a section of links such as: Washington, Oregon, California, etc... then when the user hits that "Washington" link, sTXT is set to the value "Washington" and the page stays at the current page.

I've tried <a href="javascript:void(0)"; onClick='<% sTXT = "Washingon" %>' >Washington</a>, as well as a few variations of that.

And what happens is it seems to ignore the "onClick" and just automatically sets the value, regardless of whether it was clicked or not. I'm generally just having problems with the onClick...

I've tried making a button, just to test, with and onClick that goes is set to call a sub call, but it never works! I hit the button, and nothing happens. I know the sub call works though, because I can call it outside of the button and it works just fine

If anybody could help that would be awesome. I've tried looking at other more ASP based forums, but most questions go unanswered...

**Fordy** · 03-27-2003

Code:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE></TITLE>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="Javascript">
function Hello(strCity)
{
	alert("City = " + strCity);
}
</SCRIPT>
</HEAD>

<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#FF0000" VLINK="#800000" ALINK="#FF00FF" BACKGROUND="?">
<A href=""; onClick="Hello('Washinton')">Washington</A>
<BR>
<A href=""; onClick="Hello('California')">California</A>
<BR>
<A href=""; onClick="Hello('New York')">New York</A>
</BODY>
</HTML>

**Vber** · 03-27-2003

About Fordy's code, don't forget to hide your script from old browsers by  your code.

**TravisS** · 03-27-2003

That's great and all (and thanks for the reply)... but this is ASP, that's javascript. It needs to be more along the lines of the: onClick='<% sTXT = "Washingon" %>' with the block script

I'm having a heck of a time getting this thing to work, but thanks for the reply anyway!

OH, p.s., I realize it's sets it inside of a function, which is damn near exactly what I want to do, but for whatever reason the code is ignoring the "onClick" and just doing what's inside of there, so if I have it call a function, it does it regardless of whether you click the link or not

such as if I had onClick='<%call subfunction%>' it would either call the subfunction even if I didn't click it, or more often then not, just give me an error and do absolutely nothing when I click it

**XSquared** · 03-27-2003

ASP is processed before the page even gets sent back to the browser. You'd have to use VBScript or JavaScript to do what you want to do.

**TravisS** · 03-27-2003

That's kinda what I expected to hear... If I do <language="vbscript" runat="server"> do you know if that will work? Basically, I'd like to avoid putting the source on the client side as much as possible, I only want them to see the output.

I'm modifying a pre-existing web page, and the way it was written is absolutely great for it's purpose, but now it needs a new purpose and this is being a real pain...

**TravisS** · 03-28-2003

Thanks for the tip Fordy/XSquared. A quick little 2 line javascript function did the trick

Thread: ASP help. Setting variables within an <a> tag

Thread Tools

Search Thread

Display

ASP help. Setting variables within an <a> tag

Similar Threads

Setting variables to clipboard values?

Setting environment variables.

inputting a params file with global variables (work around)

Setting OS Environment Variables

Having trouble correctly setting DJGPP's env. variables in XP