How do I get the value of a textbox using jQuery?

I can get the element like this $("#txtEmail") but I'm not sure how to get the actual value.

There's a .val() method:

If you've got an input with an id of txtEmail you can use the following code to access the value of the text box:

$("#txtEmail").val()

You can also use the val(string) method to set that value:

$("#txtEmail").val("something")

Use the .val() method.

Also I think you meant to use $("#txtEmail") as $("txtEmail") returns elements of type <txtEmail> which you probably don't have.

See here at the jQuery documentation.

Also jQuery val() method.

Possible Duplicate:

Just Additional Info which took me long time to find.what if you were using the field name and not id for identifying the form field. You do it like this:

For radio button:

 var inp= $('input:radio[name=PatientPreviouslyReceivedDrug]:checked').val();

For textbox:

 var txt=$('input:text[name=DrugDurationLength]').val();

Noticed your comment about using it for email validation and needing a plugin, the validation plugin may help you, its located at http://bassistance.de/jquery-plugins/jquery-plugin-validation/, it comes with a e-mail rule as well.

There is a .val(); method that you can use.

So in your situation you would want to use $("#txtEmail").val();. Also, make sure you add the id property into your html code!

Use the .val() method to get the actual value of the element you need.

You can access the value of Texbox control either by its ID or by its Class name.

Here is the example code:

<input type="text" id="txtEmail" class="textbox" value="1">

$(document).ready(function(){
   alert($("#txtEmail").val());
   alert($(".textbox").val());//Not recommended 
});

Using class name for getting any text-box control value can return other or wrong value as same class name can also be defined for any other control. So getting value of a specific textbox can be fetch by its id.

By Using

$("#txtEmail").val()

you get the actual value of the element

Per Jquery docs

The .val() method is primarily used to get the values of form elements such as input, select and textarea. When called on an empty collection, it returns undefined.

In order to retrieve the value store in the text box with id txtEmail, you can use

$("#txtEmail").val()