javascript - jQuery UI Datepicker Date Range

Question

I am using the jQuery UI plugin with the Datepicker function, to set a date range. The example provided on their page (http://jqueryui.com/demos/datepicker/date-range.html) sets the range based on input 'id'; however, I'd like to set the range based on 'class' as my form 'clones' the div to add additional inputs, making the 'id' fields unique on each clone. When I change the JavaScript to use 'class' instead of 'id', the ranges are no longer functioning.

JavaScript:

<script src="../../scripts/jquery-1.6.4.js"></script>
<script src="../../scripts/jqueryui/ui/jquery.ui.core.js"></script>
<script src="../../scripts/jqueryui/ui/jquery.ui.datepicker.js"></script>
<script>
        $(function() {
            var dates = $( ".start_date, .end_date" ).datepicker({
                onSelect: function( selectedDate ) {
                    var option = this.class == "start_date" ? "minDate" : "maxDate",
                        instance = $( this ).data( "datepicker" ),
                        date = $.datepicker.parseDate(
                            instance.settings.dateFormat ||
                            $.datepicker._defaults.dateFormat,
                            selectedDate, instance.settings );
                    dates.not( this ).datepicker( "option", option, date );
                }       
            }); 
        });
</script>

HTML:

<div>
    <label> Start Date:</label>
    <input type="text" name="start_date1" id="start_date1" class="start_date" />
</div>
<div>
    <label> End Date:</label>
    <input type="text" name="end_date1" id="end_date1" class="end_date" />
</div>

Answer 1

To check to see if your element has a class, do this:

 if ($(this).is('.start_date')) {

or

 if ($(this).hasClass('start_date')) {

The name of the property of DOM elements is "className", not "class" (confusingly). Also it makes your code fragile to check for the class name to be equal to some string, because you never know if you might want to add another class (like "required" for example). Thus you should always check either with jQuery or with some other method that accounts for the possibility that an object can have many classes.

Also you may want to check out the Filament Group's date range picker for jQuery.