Undo preventDefault() method

Question

I was wondering if there was any way of "undoing" the preventDefault() method on submit. I have this code that does the trick, but I want to know if there is a more efficient way of doing it.

var $form = $('form');
var canSubmit = false;

$form.data('working', false);

$form.submit(function(e){
    if (form.validations.form($form)) {
        if (!$form.data('working')) {
            $form.data('working', true);

            if (canSubmit) {
                // make the post here
            } else {
                e.preventDefault();
                $.get(BASE+'file.txt', function(response){
                    $form.data('canSubmit', true);
                    $form.submit();
                });
            }
        }
    } else {
        $form.data('working', false);
        e.preventDefault();
        return false;
    }
});

This is because I have to read and write a file after the validations are done and only after that make the post to the page. The post can't be done by ajax.

Thanks

Answer 1

You can't undo the e.preventDefault() as you are dealing with a later instance of e by the time you submit.

return false does the same as e.preventDefault() and e.stopPropagation(), so you can simplify your code a little though by simply returning your flag.

var $form = $('form');
var canSubmit = false;

$form.data('working', false);
$form.submit(function(e){
    if (form.validations.form($form)) {
        if (!$form.data('working')) {
            $form.data('working', true);
            if (!canSubmit) {
                e.preventDefault();
                $.get(BASE+'file.txt', function(response){
                    canSubmit = true;
                    $form.submit();  // trigger recursive call
                });
            }
        }
    } else {
        $form.data('working', false);
    }
    return canSubmit;
});