Update form attributes with javascript and get them on submit

Question

Hi i have a textfield form with attribute of "data-updated" the default is 0 If user clicks on textfield and fill it, "data-updated" changes to 1 with jQuery. On form submit the attribute remains 0 even if it changed to 1, how can i fix it?

Here is the code:

    $form['name'] = array(
        '#title' => t('Name'),
        '#type' => 'textfield',
        '#attributes' => array('data-updated' => 0, 'onclick' => array('jQuery(this).attr("data-updated", 1);')),
    );

And here is the submit

print_r($form_state['complete form']['name']['#attributes']['data-updated']);
die();

I always get 0 even if the jQuery update the attribute to 1 :/

Answer 1

As Clive said in the comment, you can't fix it. To do such things in the background of a form, use a hidden element:

https://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/developer!topics!forms_api_reference.html/7#hidden