jquery cookies and div style display block/none

Question

My previous script here worked in hiding and displaying certain divs when called but i want the cookie to remember which one was to be shown so users dont have to continually click the link on every page but so far i have failed in getting the jquery.cookie plug to work with my coding, any help would be great.

working single page: old code jquery:

function language(chosenlanguage) {
 $('div[name|="lang"]').each(function(index) {
      if ($(this).attr("class") == chosenlanguage) {
           $(this).show(0);
      }
      else {
           $(this).hide(0);
      }
 });
}

old code html (abreviated with only a href and div):

<div class="language">
<a href="javascript:language('english');">english</a>
<a href="javascript:language('spanish');">spanish</a>
<a href="javascript:language('german');">german</a>
</div>
<div name="lang" class="english" style="display:block;">content</div>
<div name="lang" class="spanish" style="display:none;">content</div>
<div name="lang" class="german" style="display:none;">content</div>

My new code using the jquery.cookie.js plugin is as shown but it does absolutely nothing.

jquery with cookie script:

$(document).ready(function() { 
if($.cookie("language")) {
    $('div[name|="lang"]').each(function(index) {
      if ($(this).attr("class") == $.cookie("language")) {
           $(this).show(0);
      }
      else {
           $(this).hide(0);
      }
 });
}
$(".language a").click(function() { 
    $('div[name|="lang"]').each(function(index) {
      if ($(this).attr("class") == $(".language a").attr("name")) {
           $(this).show(0);
      }
      else {
           $(this).hide(0);
      }
 });
$.cookie("language",$('.language a').attr('name'), {expires: 365, path:      '/'});
    return false;
});
});

html(abreviated):

<div class="language">
<a href="javascript:language('english');" name="english">english</a>
<a href="javascript:language('spanish');" name="spanish">spanish</a>
<a href="javascript:language('german');" name="german">german</a>
</div>
<div name="lang" class="english" style="display:block;">content</div>
<div name="lang" class="spanish" style="display:none;">content</div>
<div name="lang" class="german" style="display:none;">content</div>

So i'm just wondering what i'm doing wrong?

Answer 1

$.cookie("language",$('.language a').attr('name'), {expires: 365, path:      '/'});
    return false;
});

always sets the value of the cookie to english since that always returns the name of the first <a /> in .languages

also, you shouldn't compare classes to strings this way: .attr('class') == lang, you should instead use hasClass, eg: .hasClass(lang)

$(".language a").click(function() { 
    $('div[name|="lang"]').each(function(index) {
      if ($(this).attr("class") == $(".language a").attr("name")) {
           $(this).show(0);
      }
      else {
           $(this).hide(0);
      }
 });

should look like:

$(".language a").click(function() { 
    var clicked = this;
    $('div[name|="lang"]').each(function(index) {
      if ($(this).hasClass($(clicked).attr("name"))) {
           $(this).show();
      }
      else {
           $(this).hide();
      }
    });
    $.cookie("language", $(clicked).attr('name'), {expires: 365, path: '/'});
});

notice i am saving the clicked item in a variable before looping through the divs, you need to do that to have a reference to the clicked item