How to check for attachments or limit the number of attachments in SharePoint via jQuery

A client had a business requirement that if someone added an attachment to an item in a list, a metadata field had to be filled in.

So I put on my jQuery glasses (they are quite special, looking a bit like Dame Edna’s)

I ended up with following code which uses the PreSaveAction, a default function that runs every time you hit the “ok” button:

function PreSaveAction() {
// we create a counter and we go through the fileupload to check how many there are
  var count = 0;
  $("input[name^='fileupload']").each(function(){
  if ($(this).val() != ""){
      count++;
  }
  });
  // Then we check if the mandatory field is empty and if we have attachments
  if ($(":select[title=Contact means]").val() == “”) {
    if (count > 0){
            alert("Please fill the field if you have uploaded an attachment");
      return false;
    }
}
//if the field was not empty or we have no attachments,
//we don’t go into the if loop and we can go ahead and save the item
Return true;
}</pre>

This code could also be used to limit the number of attachments a user can add.
That code would be:

function PreSaveAction() {
// we create a counter and we go through the fileupload to check how many there are
  var count = 0;
  $("input[name^='fileupload']").each(function(){
  if ($(this).val() != ""){
      count++;
  }
  });
  // Then we check there are more then 10 attachments
    if (count > 10){
            alert("Please limit to 10 attachments");
      return false;
    }
// if we have less then 10 items, we can just continue
Return true;
}

Don’t forget to add the jquery library reference!