The "name" attribute isn't the same as the "id" attribute (though in IE it "kind of" is).
On a side note, XHTML and HTML differ in how you make something "checked": HTML: <input type="checkbox" checked> XHTML: <input type="checkbox" checked="checked"> If you want to select by "name" you'll need to do this: $("input[name=tog_0]") Or you could add an "id" to the checkboc it if you want: <input class="show_tog" type="checkbox" checked="checked" id="tog_0" name="tog_0"/> Then your $("#tog_0").attr('checked') will work. On a side note, jQuery (or $) always return a jQuery object. To check to see if that "object" (it acts a bit like an array) actually contains anything check it's length. That is: if ( $('#something').length ) { // an object with id="something" exists on the page } Karl Rudd On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 12:02 PM, Chris <chris.b...@gmail.com> wrote: > > This is incredibly basic, but I'm missing something. I have this html: > > <input class="show_tog" type="checkbox" checked="" name="tog_0"/> > > I want to find the toggle and get the value of checked. I have tried > the following, but nothing works: > > alert ($("#tog_0").attr("checked")); > alert ($("#tog_0").checked); > > both give me undefined. > > $("#tog_0") is giving me an object. > > What am I missing? > > -- > Chris >