Plugin to allow easy read/write access to HTML5 data- attributes

jquery.dataset.js

$.fn.dataset = function(key, value) {
  if(value != null) {
		if($(this).attr('data-' + key)) {
			$(this).attr('data-' + key, value);
			return true;
		} else {
			return false;
		}
	} else {
		return $(this).attr('data-' + key);
	}
};

Given the initial HTML

<div class="foo" data-length="300" data-color="red">Hello World!</div>

Reading data attributes

$('div.foo').dataset('length') => "300"

Writing data attrbiutes

$('div.foo').dataset('color', 'green') => true

<div class="foo" data-length="300" data-color="green">Hello World!</div>