How to make single rows in tables readonly

Question

Hi All,
We have a table that is populated with data from a database read. One of columns in the read acts as a flag. If it is found that particular row is suppose to be readonly. During the read a check is done and if it is is found we call a simple javascript function that should make that row readonly.
The Code looks like this:
Code:
function disableRow (rowIndex) {
  var table = document.all.mainTable;
  var rowAttend = eval("document.all['" + idAttendRow + eval(rowIndex) + " ']");
  var rowVolume = eval("document.all['" + idVolumeRow + eval(rowIndex) + " ']");
  if (table) {
    for (var c=0; c < rowAttend.cells.length; c++) {
      //rowAttend.cells[c].style.backgroundColor = "#1AA047";
      //rowAttend.cells[c].disabled = true;
      rowAttend.cells[c].readOnly = true;
    for (var c=0; c < rowVolume.cells.length; c++) {
      //rowVolume.cells[c].style.backgroundColor = "#1AA047";
      //rowAttend.cells[c].disabled = true;
      rowAttend.cells[c].readOnly = true;
The colour and disable functions work fine but I can't make the readOnly work. Any help would be great. The cells are a combination of dropdowns and input fields.
Cheers

Answer 1

Hi Luke,
You can't set readonly attribute for cells, because there's no such attribute for cells (tag <td>) in HTML DOM. It will not raise any javascript error, because javascript and HTML DOM allow you to add your customized attribute. In your case "readOnly" will treated as customized attribute.
In HTML DOM, cells was treated as a container inside row (tag <tr>), it's not an input, that's why it doesn't have readonly property.
However you can disable all DOM inside cells by set its disabled attribute into true, and that's what your previous code do. But becarefull, if you do this, you can't get all value inside that cell when you submit the Form.
Usually if I'm facing this problem, I will update the disabled attribute into false, just before submit the form.
Hope this help
Regards
David
ps:
1. If you want to disable all cells in one row, just disable the row, it will automatically disable all cells inside it, it will improve your javascript performance.
2. Your javascript will only work for IE, if you want it to work with other browser, change "document.all[]" with "document.getElementById()"