reading innerHTML of HTML form with VALUE attribute (& its value) of INPUT tags

I have a html form with some input fields.

Instead of reading and sending the values of input fields by document.ipForm.userName.value , I need to send the whole html content to html parser and extract the <name ,value> pair of each input field by some other program( and other information too).

But when i did this in JavaScript(i want pure JavaScript- not other library)

var contents=document.getElementById("formArea").innerHTML;
alert(contents);

It doesnot shows the value="enteredValue" of <input/> fields even if i entered some values.

My HTML File:

<html>
<head>
    <script type="text/javascript">
    function showInnerHtml(){
        var contents=document.getElementById("formArea").innerHTML;
        alert(contents);
    }
    </script>
</head>
<body>
    <div id="formArea">
        <form name="ipForm" >
          UserName : <input type="text" name="userName"> 
        </form>
    </div>
    <div> other contents.....   </div>
    <div onclick="showInnerHtml()">Show InnerHTML</div>
</body>
</html>

Am i missing something here or this is not possible.

Don't call me MAD. but i am struggling with this strange condition.

Solution

That's because value is a property when the textbox is filled in, not an attribute. This means that .value works fine, but it's not part of the actual DOM as an attribute (like <input value="...">).

You'd need to set it explicitly:

document.getElementById("html").onclick = function() {
  var elems = document.getElementsByName("ipForm")[0]
    .getElementsByTagName("input");

  for (var i = 0; i < elems.length; i++) {
    // set attribute to property value
    elems[i].setAttribute("value", elems[i].value);
  }

  alert(document.getElementsByName("ipForm")[0].innerHTML);
};

<form name="ipForm">
  UserName : <input type="text" name="userName">
</form>
<button id="html">get innerHTML</button>

View on jsFiddle