Get any form element attribute by any part of it.

[solepixel]

This may sound confusing however throughout various parts of my script i'm writing, I need to reference different parts of a form element. Parts like name, id, type and tagName. I tried writing a function that will extract whichever one i'm looking for with only what i have to give it. Say for example, I want the element's name and I have the id, or I want the ID and all I have is it's object reference (HTMLInputElement). I would like to feed this function any number of valid sources and let it give me back what I'm looking for. Here's the function I wrote, which doesn't work, but will maybe help you understand what I'm trying to do:

function thisForThat(trade,what,formName){
	here = trade;
	
	//get name
	var name = "";
	if(document.forms[formName].elements[trade]){
		name = trade;
	} else {
		if($(trade).name){
			name = $(trade).name;
		}
		if(trade.name != "" && !name){
			name = trade.name;
		}
		if(document.forms[formName].elements[trade.name] && !name){
			name = trade.name;
		}
	}
	
	//get id
	var id = "";
	if($(trade)){
		id = trade;
	} else {
		if(document.forms[formName].elements[trade]){
			if(document.forms[formName].elements[trade].name != ""){
				id = document.forms[formName].elements[trade].name;
			}
		}
		if(trade.id && !id){
			id = trade.id
		}
	}
	if(!id){
		id = name;
	}
	
	// get nameRef
	var nameRef = "";
	if(typeof trade != "undefined"){
		if(trade.name){
			nameRef = document.forms[formName].elementes[trade.name];
		}
	}
	if($(trade) && !nameRef){
		if($(trade).name != ""){
			nameRef = document.forms[formName].elements[$(trade).name];
		}
	}
	if(document.forms[formName].elements[trade] && !nameRef){
		nameRef = document.forms[formName].elements[trade];
	}
	
	//get idRef
	var idRef = "";
	if(trade.id != ""){
		idRef = $(trade.id);
	}
	if(document.forms[formName].elements[trade] && !idRef){
		if(document.forms[formName].elements[trade].id != ""){
			idRef = $(document.forms[formName].elements[trade].id);
		}
	}
	if($(trade) && !idRef){
		idRef = $(trade);
	}
	if(!idRef){
		idRef = nameRef;
	}
	
	// get tagName
	if(nameRef){
		tagName = nameRef.tagName;
	} else {
		tagName = idRef.tagName;
	}
	
	//get type
	if(nameRef){
		if(nameRef.type != ""){
			type = nameRef.type;
		}
	} else {
		if(idRef.type != ""){
			type = idRef.type;
		}
	}
	
	if(what == "id"){
		return id;
	}
	if(what == "name"){
		return name;
	}
	if(what == "idRef"){
		return idRef;
	}
	if(what == "nameRef"){
		return nameRef;
	}
	if(what == "tagName"){
		return tagName;
	}
	if(what == "type"){
		return type;
	}
}